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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


LECTURES   AND    REMAINS 


RICHARD    LEWIS    NETTLESHIP 


.VOL.  II. 


5- 


18 "j(1. 


I 


PHILOSOPHICAL 
LECTURES   AND    REMAINS 


RICHARD   LEWIS   NETTLESHII 

Ml 
FELLOW  AND  TUTOR  OF  BALLIOL  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


EDITED,    WITH  A    BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 

BV 

A.   C.   BRADLEY 

PROFESSOR    OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    GLASGOW 
FORMERLY   FELLOW    AND    LECTURER    OF  BALLIOL    COLLEGE,    OXFORD 

AND 

G.   R.   BENSON 

OF    BALLIOL    COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


IN   TWO  VOLUMES:    VOL.   II 

Pontoon 
MACMILLAN   AND   CO.,  Ltd. 

NEW  YORK:  THE  MACMILLAN  CO. 
1897 

\All  rights  reserved} 


HORACE  HART,    PRINTER   TO    THE    UNIVERSITY 


NOTE 

A  large  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  the 
lectures  which  form  the  contents  of  the  present 
volume  was  also  treated  by  Nettleship  in  his 
essay  in  Helleuica,  entitled  '  The  Theory  of 
Education  in  the  Republic  of  Plato,'  and  again 
in  an  essay  on  '  Plato's  Conception  of  Goodness 
and  the  Good,'  which  will  be  found  in  vol.  i. 
of  these  Lectures  and  Remains.  Students  of 
the  Republic  who  make  use  of  this  volume  may 
be  recommended  also  to  read  the  two  essays 
above  mentioned. 

In  reproducing  Nettleship's  lectures  on  the 
Republic,  I  have  followed  in  the  main  the  very 
full  notes  taken  by  several  pupils  in  the  year 
1887  and  the  beginning  of  1888.  I  have,  how- 
ever, made  much  use  of  my  own  and  other  notes 
of  the  lectures  as  given  in  1885,  adopting  from 
them,  besides  single  sentences  and  phrases,  many 


VI  NOTE 

whole  passages  in  which  some  subject  happened 
to  have  been  more  fully  treated  than  in  the  later 
year.  In  every  case  where  there  was  a  substantial 
discrepancy  between  the  lectures  given  in  the  two 
years  I  have  followed  the  later  version. 

In  the  actual  lectures  Nettleship  used  Greek 
terms  and  English  equivalents  for  them  almost 
indifferently.  As  the  lectures  may  be  read  by 
some  who  do  not  read  the  original  Greek,  I  have 
throughout  adopted  English  words,  except  where 
no  English  equivalent  for  the  Greek  seems  pos- 
sible, or  where  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  word 
is  itself  the  subject  referred  to. 

While  remaining  solely  responsible  in  every 
point  for  the  form  in  which  these  lectures  finally 
appear,  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Bradley,  the  editor 
of  the  preceding  volume,  for  most  valuable  advice 
and  assistance  which  I  have  received  from  him  at 
several  stages  in  my  task. 

GODFREY  R.  BENSON. 


CONTENTS   OF   VOL.    II 


LECTURES  ON  THE  'REPUBLIC  OF  PLATO 

PAGE 

I.    Introduction         .........  3 

II.    Examination   of   some   Representative   Opinions   about 

Justice           .        .         .......  14 

I  II. Statement  of  the  Problem  of  the  'Republic'       .         .  47 

IV.   The  Main  Elements  of  Society  and  of  Human  Nature 

Indicated        .........  67 

V.    Education  of  Rulers  in  Early  Life  : 

1.  Introductory          .         .         .          .         .          .         .  77 

2.  Movaitct] :  Myths  and  the  Beliefs  Taught  in  Literature.  84 

3.  MovcriKT]  :    the  Art  of  Literature  ....  -99 

4.  MovffiKT):    Music  and  the  Arts  generally      .         .         .  108 

5.  TvfjLvaffTiKTj  and  Digression  on  Law  and  Medicine      .  123 

VI.    Principles  of  Government  in  the  Ideal  State        .         .  130 

VII.    Statement  of  the  Principle  of  Justice            .         .         .  145 

VIII.   Communism  and  Digression  on  Usages  of  War      .         .  162 

IX.    Philosophy  and  the  State 184 

X.    The  Good  as  the  Supreme  Object  of  Knowledge          .  212 

XL   The  Four  Stages  of  Intelligence     .....  238 
XII.    Education  in  Science  and  Philosophy: 

1.  The  Existing  Want  of  Education         ....  259 

2.  Education  in  the  Sciences  ......  263 

3.  Dialectic         .........  277 

4.  Plan  of  the  Whole  Course  of  Education     .         .         .  289 

XIII.  Successive  Stages  of  Decline  of  Society  and  of   the 

Soul       ..........  294 

XIV.  Comparison  of  the  Just  and  the  Unjust  Life        .         .  315 
XV.   Digression  on  Poetry         .......  340 

XVI.   The  Future  Life  of  the  Soul           .....  355 


LECTURES 


ON 


PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC 


VOL.  II. 


LECTURES   ON    PLATO'S 
'REPUBLIC 

I.    INTRODUCTION 

The  Republic,  though  it  has  something  of  the  nature 
both  of  poetry  and  of  preaching,  is  primarily  a  book  of 
philosophy.  In  studying  it,  therefore,  we  have  to  pay 
attention  above  all  to  the  reasoning,  the  order  and  con- 
nexion of  thought.  A  philosopher  is  a  man  with  a  greater 
power  of  thinking  than  other  people,  one  who  has  thought 
more  than  others  on  subjects  of  common  interest.  All 
philosophy  must  be  critical ;  and  in  thinking  facts  out  to 
their  consequences  the  philosopher  necessarily  arrives  at 
conclusions  different  from  and  often  contradictory  to  the 
ideas  current  around  him.  Often  indeed  the  conclusions 
he  arrives  at  seem  no  different  from  those  of  plain  people, 
and  yet  the  difference  between  the  philosopher  and  the 
mass  of  mankind  remains  a  great  one,  for,  though  starting 
from  the  same  facts  and  arriving  at  similar  conclusions, 
he  has  in  the  interval  gone  through  a  process  of  thinking, 
and  the  truth  he  holds  is  reasoned  truth.     What  seems 

B  2 


4  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

at  first  sight  the  same  truth,  and  may  be  put  in  the  same 
words  that  anybody  else  would  use,  is  yet  a  very  different 
truth  to  the  philosopher,  containing  a  great  deal  that  is  not 
present  to  the  minds  of  most  men.  In  either  case,  whether 
the  results,  at  which  the  philosopher  arrives,  are  what  we 
believe  or  what  we  do  not  believe,  the  first  thing  we  have 
to  do  is  to  follow  his  enquiries.  We  should  see  how  he 
arrives  at  his  conclusions  before  we  begin  to  criticize  them. 

To  study  the  Republic  in  this  way  is  difficult.  Plato's 
ideas  are  often  expressed  in  a  manner  very  different  from 
any  that  we  are  accustomed  to.  This  is,  in  part,  a  diffi- 
culty common  to  all  reading  in  philosophy.  In  arriving 
at  ideas  unlike  those  of  most  people  philosophy  does  not 
differ  at  all  from  the  special  sciences  :  but  while  the 
elementary  conceptions  of  the  sciences  are  approximately 
fixed,  and  the  meaning  of  the  terms  used  can  be  seen  at 
once  or  quickly  learnt,  it  is  otherwise  with  philosophy  ; 
for  the  subject-matter  of  philosophy  is  of  a  comparatively 
general  character,  being  chiefly  the  main  facts  about 
human  knowledge  and  human  morality,  and  in  such 
subjects  there  can  be  no  absolutely  fixed  terminology. 
Sometimes  also,  in  Plato  and  other  Greek  philosophers, 
the  significance  of  what  is  said  escapes  us  just  because  it 
is  expressed  in  a  very  simple  way.  The  Republic,  more- 
over, has  special  difficulties  arising  from  the  peculiarities 
of  its  form  and  method; — every  great  book  has  character- 
istics of  its  own.  which  have  to  be  studied  like  the 
characteristics  of  a  person. 

What,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  subject  of  the  book? 
Its  name  might  suggest  that  it  was  a  book  of  political 
philosophy,  but  we  very  soon  find  that  it  is  rather  a  book 
of  moral  philosophy.  (It  starts  from  the  question  l  What 
i.-  ju.st.ice  (biKauxTvvr))  ?  '  that  being  the  most  comprehensive 


INTRODUCTION  5 

of  the  Greek  names  for  virtues,  and  in  its  widest  sense, 
as  Aristotle  tells  us,  equivalent  to  '  the  whole  of  virtue  as 
shown  in  our  dealings  with  others  1.')  It  is  a  book  about 
human  life  and  the  human  soul  or  human  nature,  and 
the  real  question  in  it  is,  as  Plato  says,  how  to  live  best 2. 
What  then  is  implied  in  calling  it  the  Republic  (7roAireta)? 
To  Plato  one  of  the  leading  facts  about  human  life  is  that 
it  can  only  be  lived  well  in  some  form  of  organized 
community,  of  which  the  Greeks  considered  the  civic 
community  to  be  the  best  form.  Therefore  the  question, 
What  is  the  best  life  ?  is  to  him  inseparable  from  the 
question,  What  is  the  best  order  or  organization  of 
human  society?  The  subject  of  the  Republic  is  thus 
a  very  wide  one  ;  and  a  modern  critic,  finding  such 
a  variety  of  matter  in  it,  is  inclined  to  think  that  Plato 
has  confused  quite  distinct  questions.  This  is  not  so  ; 
he  gives  us  in  the  Republic  an  ideal  picture  of  the  rise 
and  fall  of  the  human  soul,  its  rise  to  its  highest  stage 
of  development  and  its  fall  to  its  lowest  depth  ;  and  in 
doing  so  he  has  tried  to  take  account  of  everything  in 
the  human  soul,  of  its  whole  nature.  Modern  associations 
lead  us  to  expect  that  the  book  should  be  either  distinctly 
ethical  or  distinctly  political,  that  it  should  either  con- 
sider man  in  his  relations  as  a  citizen  or  consider  him 
simply  as  a  moral  agent.  Because  the  Greek  philosophers 
did  not  separate  these  two  questions  it  is  frequently  said 
that  they  confused  them  ;  whereas  it  would  be  truer  to 
say  that  they  looked  at  human  life  more  simply  and 
more  completely  than  we  are  apt  to  do.  But  of  course 
there  are  questions  which  we  have  to  differentiate  as 
ethical  or  political,  and  which  the  Greeks  did  not  thus 
differentiate.     The  reason  is  that  their  actual  life  was 

1  Eth.  Nic.  V.  i.  15  and  20.  a  344  E. 


6  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

less  differentiated  than  ours  ;  that  law,  custom,  and 
religion  were  not  in  practice  the  distinct  things  that  they 
are  now. 

Along  with  the  main  subject  there  are  many  incidental 
and  subordinate  subjects  in  the  Republic  ;  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  criticism  of  existing  institutions,  practices,  and 
opinions.  The  book  may  be  regarded  not  only  as  a 
philosophical  work,  but  as  a  treatise  on  social  and  political 
reform.  It  is  written  in  the  spirit  of  a  man  not  merely 
reflecting  on  human  life,  but  intensely  anxious  to  reform 
and  revolutionize  it.  This  fact,  while  giving  a  peculiar 
interest  to  Plato's  writing,  prejudices  the  calmness  and 
impartiality  of  his  philosophy.  He  is  always  writing 
with  crying  evils  in  his  eye — a  characteristic  in  which 
he  differs  widely  from  Aristotle. 

We  must  next  consider  the  form  of  the  book.  It  was 
not  peculiar  to  Plato  to  throw  his  speculations  into  the 
form  of  dialogues.  Several  of  the  pupils  of  Socrates 
wrote  dialogues,  and  the  fashion  lasted  to  the  time  of 
Aristotle.  The  fact  that  this  form  came  naturally  to 
a  Greek  philosopher  is  part  of  a  more  general  literary 
phenomenon.  Greek  literature  is  certainly  less  personal 
than  modern  literature  (the  Greek  drama,  for  instance,  is 
less  subjective  than  ours),  but  on  the  other  hand  Greek 
literature  is  more  concrete.  Thucydidcs'  history  differs 
from  modern  books  of  history  both  in  the  absence  of 
personal  detail  and  in  the  absence  of  general  reflexions. 
The  place  of  general  reflexions  is  taken  in  Thucydidcs 
by  fictitious  speeches  put  into  the  mouths  of  actual 
persons  ;  and  in  this  we  sec  that  the  distinction  now 
observed  in  literature  between  the  exposition  of  ideas  and 
principles  and  the  representation  of  persons  and  character 
had  not  then  become  prominent.    So  Plato  takes  a  number 


INTRODUCTION  7 

of  actual  personages,  some  contemporary,  some  belonging 
to  the  last  generation,  some  of  them  public  men,  others 
friends  of  his  own,  and  makes  them  the  exponents  of  the 
philosophical  opinions  and  ideas  that  he  wishes  to  set 
before  us.  These  persons  are  not  used  as  mere  lay- 
figures  ;  they  are  chosen  because  they  actually  had  in 
them  something  of  what  the  dialogues  attribute  to  them, 
and  they  are  often  represented  with  dramatic  propriety 
and  vivacity.  Nevertheless  they  are  handled  without  the 
slightest  scruple  as  to  historical  truth ; — (the  sense  of 
historical  truth  is  a  feature  of  modern  times,  its  absence 
a  feature  of  ancient,  and  we  see  this  in  Plato,  just  as  we 
see  it  in  Aristophanes).  So  the  personages  of  the  dialogue 
are  on  the  one  hand  simply  ideal  expressions  of  certain 
principles  ;  on  the  other  hand  they  carry  with  them  much 
of  their  real  character.  The  Platonic  dialogue  is  a  form 
of  writing  which  would  be  impossible  now.  We  require 
a  writer  to  keep  the  exposition  of  principles  distinct  from 
the  representation  of  persons,  and  to  treat  characters  pri- 
marily with  an  historical  interest  if  they  are  actual  people, 
primarily  with  a  dramatic  interest  if  they  are  fictitious. 
As  a  rule,  when  the  form  of  dialogue  has  been  used  by 
modern  philosophers,  as  it  was  by  Berkeley,  the  person- 
ages are  not  characters  at  all;  the  dialogue  of  Bunyan 
is  the  best  analogy  in  English  literature  to  that  of  Plato. 
In  Plato  the  dramatic  element  is  present  in  different  de- 
grees in  different  dialogues.  The  Protagoras  is  the  most 
finished  philosophical  drama,  and  in  the  Euthydemus  we 
have  a  philosophical  burlesque.  In  the  later  dialogues 
the  dramatic  element  is  smaller,  but  all  of  them  are  real 
dialogues,  except  the  Laivs,  in  which  the  conversation  is 
very  slight,  and  the  Timaeus,  in  which  even  the  form  of 
conversation  is  dropped  for  that  of  exposition.     In  the 


8      LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  ' REPUBLIC 

Republic  itself  the  dramatic  element  diminishes  as  the 
book  proceeds,  but  is  occasionally  resuscitated. 

While  however  Plato's  adoption  of  this  form  is  in 
agreement  with  other  tendencies  in  Greek  literature 
generally,  there  is  also  a  special  reason  to  be  found  for 
it  in  the  history  of  philosophy ;  the  dialogue  form  has 
a  serious  import.  Philosophic  dialogue  had  its  origin 
in  Socrates  himself,  with  whom  Greek  philosophy,  as 
distinct  from  the  investigation  of  nature,  practically  begins. 
He  passed  his  life  in  talking.  It  was  the  impulse  given  by 
his  life  that  produced  Plato's  dialogues.  Socrates  is  unique 
among  philosophers  because  he  lived  his  philosophy  ; 
he  put  out  what  he  had  to  put  out,  not  in  books,  but  in 
his  life,  and  he  developed  his  ideas  by  constant  contact 
with  other  men.  That  he  was  able  to  do  this  was  his 
great  power ;  he  was  a  man  who,  wherever  he  was  and 
whomsoever  he  met,  showed  himself  master  of  the  situa- 
tion. In  his  case,  then,  it  was  apparent  that  philosophy 
is  a  living  thing  developed  by  the  contact  of  living  minds. 
We  are  apt  to  think  of  it  as  something  very  impersonal 
and  abstract,  but,  emphatically,  all  philosophy  deals  with 
something  in  human  nature,  and  differences  in  philosophy 
are  differences  at  the  bottom  of  human  nature.  When, 
however,  philosophy  is  concentrated  and  embodied  in 
a  book,  it  speaks  a  language  not  understood  by  most 
people,  and  the  author,  when  once  he  has  published  his 
book,  cannot  help  it  if  his  readers  misunderstand  what 
he  says,  for  he  is  not  in  immediate  contact  with  them. 
Plato  stands  between  Socrates  and  a  modern  writer  on 
philosophy.  He  has  endeavoured  to  preserve  the  living 
philosophy  in  the  written  words  ;  he  takes  types  of 
human  nature  more  or  less  familiar  to  his  readers,  and 
he  makes  them  develop  his  ideas  by  the  natural  process 


INTRODUCTION  9 

of  question  and  answer.  The  literary  "function  of  the 
Platonic  dialogue  is  in  modern  literature  distributed 
between  different  kinds  of  books,  chiefly  between  books 
of  philosophy,  and  novels,  in  which  ideas  grow,  embodied 
in  the  lives  of  the  characters. 

Further,  the  form  of  question  and  answer  seems  to 
Plato  the  natural  form  for  the  search  after  truth  to  take. 
He  constantly  opposes  this  to  the  mode,  which  the 
sophists  adopted,  of  haranguing  or  preaching — producing 
effect  by  piling  up  words1.  Why  does  he  thus  insist 
on  question  and  answer?  Because  the  discovery  of 
truth  must  be  a  gradual  process,  and  at  every  step  we 
should  make  ourselves  realize  exactly  at  what  point 
we  have  arrived.  In  Plato  this  is  effected  by  the  dia- 
logue form,  each  step  being  made  with  the  agreement  of 
two  or  more  persons.  Now,  though  philosophy  need  not 
proceed  by  discussion  between  two  people,  its  method 
must  always  be  in  principle  the  same  ;  a  person  who 
really  thinks  elicits  ideas  from  himself  by  questioning 
himself,  and  tests  those  ideas  by  questioning ;  he  does, 
in  fact,  the  same  sort  of  thing  with  himself  that  Socrates 
did  with  other  people.  In  dialogue  two  or  more  minds 
are  represented  as  combining  in  the  search  for  truth,  and 
the  truth  is  elicited  by  the  contact  of  view  with  view ; 
in  this  respect  it  is  replaced  in  a  modern  philosophy 
book  by  a  criticism  which  endeavours  to  elicit  the  truth 
from  opposing  views. 

In  addition  to  Plato's  use  of  dialogue  we  have  to 
reckon  with  his  habit  of  stating  ideas  in  a  picturesque 
manner.  Thus  in  Book  II  of  the  Republic,  when  he  is 
analyzing  principles  which  are  at  work  in  existing  society, 

1  See,  for  example,  Rep.  I.  348  a  and  B,  and  350  D  and  E,  and  for  a  favour- 
able representation  of  the  manner  of  the  sophists  see  the  Protagoras. 


io  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

he  exhibits  them  in  what  appears  to  be  an  historical 
sketch.  He  describes  first  a  state  organized  solely  for 
the  production  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  afterwards 
makes  it  grow  into  a  luxurious  state ;  but  he  knows  all 
the  time  that  the  features  he  ascribes  to  each  are  simply- 
taken  from  the  Athens  of  his  own  day.  This  is  more 
noticeable  still  in  Books  VIII  and  IX,  where  he  wishes 
to  exhibit  various  developments  of  evil  in  a  logical  order 
of  progress,  and  to  do  so  takes  five  characters  and  five 
states  in  succession,  describing  them  as  historically  grow- 
ing one  out  of  the  other.  The  result  of  this  tendency 
is  to  make  his  writing  more  vivid,  but  it  is  misleading 
and  gives  unnecessary  occasions  for  retort.  The  order 
in  which  Plato's  thoughts  follow  upon  one  another  in  the 
Republic  is  logical,  but  the  dramatic  or  the  picturesque 
medium  through  which  he  is  constantly  presenting  his 
ideas  disguises  the  logical  structure  of  the  work. 

The  logical  method  of  the  Republic  is  in  accordance 
with  the  form  of  conversational  discussion.  Plato  does 
not  start  by  collecting  all  the  facts  he  can,  trying  after- 
wards to  infer  a  principle  from  them  ;  the  book  is  full 
of  facts,  but  they  are  all  arranged  to  illustrate  principles 
which  he  has  in  mind  from  the  beginning.  Nor  does  he 
set  out  by  stating  a  principle  and  then  asking  what 
consequences  follow  from  it.  Starting  with  a  certain 
conception  of  what  man  is,  he  builds  up  a  picture  of 
what  human  life  might  be,  and  in  this  he  is  guided 
throughout  by  principles  which  he  docs  not  enunciate 
till    he    has  gone  on  some  way1.     He  begins  the  con- 

1  Wc  may  say  that  the  ultimate  principle  of  the  Republic  is  that  the 
universe  is  the  manifestation  of  a  single  pervading  law,  and  that  human 
lit'   i    good  si)  for  as  it  obeys  that  law;  but  of  this  principle  1'lato  docs 
ik  till  the  end  of  Book  VI. 


INTRODUCTION  ir 

struction  of  his  picture  with  admitted  facts  about  human 
life,  and  he  gradually  adds  further  elements  in  human 
life ;  he  at  once  appeals  to  and  criticizes  popular  ideas, 
as  he  goes  on,  extracting  the  truth  and  rejecting  the  false- 
hood in  them.  Thus  neither  '  induction '  nor  '  deduction  ' 
is  a  term  that  applies  to  his  method  ;  it  is  a  '  genetic ' 
or  '  constructive '  method  ;  the  formation  of  his  principle 
and  the  application  of  it  are  going  on  side  by  side. 

Before  beginning  to  follow  the  argument  in  detail,  we 
must  notice  the  main  divisions  into  which  it  falls.  They 
are  the  following  : — 

i.  Books  I  and  II,  to  367  E.  This  forms  an  intro- 
duction ;  in  it  several  representative  views  about  human 
life  are  examined,  and  the  problem  to  which  the  Republic 
offers  a  solution  is  put  before  us.  That  problem  arises 
in  the  following  manner  :  we  believe  that  there  are  moral 
principles  to  be  observed  in  life ;  but  this  belief  is  in 
apparent  contradiction  to  the  fact,  which  meets  the  eye, 
that  what  we  should  commonly  call  success  in  life  does 
not  depend  upon  morality.  The  sense  of  this  contradic- 
tion leads  to  the  demand,  with  which  the  Introduction 
culminates  :  '  Show  us  what  morality  really  is,  by  explain- 
ing (without  any  regard  to  its  external  and  accidental 
results)  how  it  operates  in  the  soul  of  him  who  possesses 
it.  What  does  morality  mean  in  a  man's  innermost  life  ? ' 
This  question  indicates  the  central  idea  of  the  Republic. 

2.  From  Book  II,  367  E,  to  the  end  of  Book  IV. 
In  this  section  Plato  describes  in  outline  what,  as  he 
conceives,  would  be  the  best  form  of  human  society ; 
'justice'  is  to  be  traced  first  in  the  institutions  of  this 
society.  These  are  based,  as  he  considers,  upon  the 
requirements  of  human  nature.  The  society  is  a  com- 
munity in   the   life  of  which   every  element  in  human 


12  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

nature  has  its  proper  scope  given  to  it ;  and  in  this  its 
justice  consists.  The  external  organization,  of  which 
this  section  treats,  is  only  of  importance  because  the 
inner  life  of  man  finds  its  expression  in  it.  Beginning 
therefore  with  the  organization  of  life  in  the  state,  and 
discovering  in  every  part  of  it  a  principle  upon  which 
the  welfare  of  the  community  depends,  Plato  endeavours 
to  trace  this  principle  to  its  roots  in  the  constitution  of 
human  nature,  showing  how  whatever  is  good  or  evil  in 
the  external  order  of  society  depends  upon  the  inner 
nature  of  the  soul. 

3.  Books  V  to  VII.  Beginning  with  a  further  dis- 
cussion of  some  points  in  the  institutions  of  the  ideal 
society,  Plato,  in  the  main  part  of  this  section,  starts  from 
the  question  by  what  means  this  ideal  could  be  realized. 
The  answer  is  that  human  life  would  be  as  perfect  as  it 
is  capable  of  being,  if  it  were  governed  throughout  by 
knowledge  ;  while  the  cause  of  all  present  evils  is  that 
men  are  blinded,  by  their  own  passions  and  prejudices, 
to  the  laws  of  their  own  life.  Plato  expresses  this  by 
saying  that,  if  the  ideal  is  to  be  reached  and  if  present 
evils  are  to  be  brought  to  an  end,  philosophy  must  rule 
the  state  ; — (by  philosophy  he  means  the  best  knowledge 
and  the  fullest  understanding  of  the  most  important 
subjects).  In  these  Books  he  is  occupied  on  the  one 
hand  with  the  evils  that  result  from  the  waste  and 
perversion  of  what  he  feels  to  be  the  most  precious  thing 
in  human  nature,  the  capacity  for  attaining  truth,  and 
on  the  other  hand  with  the  means  by  which  this  capacity 
might  be  so  trained  and  so  turned  to  account  as  to  bring 
the  greatest  benefit  to  mankind. 

4.  Books  VIII  and  IX.  As  the  earlier  Books  put 
before  us  a  picture  of  what  human  life  might  be  at  its 


INTRODUCTION  13 

best,  so  these  put  before  us  an  ideal  picture  of  human 
evil,  tracing  the  fall  of  society  and  of  human  nature  to 
the  lowest  depths  they  can  reach.  Plato  here  tests  and 
develops  further  his  idea  of  the  principle  upon  which 
human  good  depends,  by  undertaking  to  show  that  all 
existing  evil  is  due  to  the  neglect  of  that  principle. 

5.  Book  X.  This  is  the  most  detached  part  of  the 
Republic,  and  consists  of  two  disconnected  sections.  The 
first  half  of  it  treats  over  again  the  subject  of  art,  and 
especially  of  poetry,  which  has  already  been  considered 
in  Book  III.  The  last  half  continues  the  consideration 
of  the  main  subject,  the  capabilities  and  destinies  of 
the  human  soul,  by  following  the  soul  into  the  life 
after  death. 


II.    EXAMINATION    OF   SOME    REPRE- 
SENTATIVE   OPINIONS   ABOUT 
JUSTICE 

[Republic,  Book  I.] 

THE  First  Book  of  the  Republic,  and  the  First  Book 
only,  is  in  construction  and  method  closely  similar  to 
the  earlier  dialogues  of  Plato,  the  '  Socratic '  dialogues. 
It  serves  as  a  prelude  to  the  rest  of  the  work,  as  we  are 
told  at  the  beginning  of  Book  II.  In  it  certain  accepted 
ideas  of  morality,  which  in  a  modern  work  would  have 
been  formulated  as  abstract  ideas,  are  embodied  before 
us  by  various  persons.  We  must  first  try  to  see  what 
different  kinds  of  characters  Plato  has  intended  to 
represent  to  us  in  these  persons. 

Socrates  is  always  in  the  dialogues  of  Plato  the 
representative  of  the  true  philosophic  spirit,  but  this 
reveals  itself  in  different  dialogues  in  different  ways. 
In  this  Book  it  shows  itself  as  a  critical  spirit  which 
arrives  at  no  apparent  positive  result  whatever.  Socrates 
is  the  representative  of  an  clement  always  present  in 
philosophy,  the  sceptical  or  enquiring  spirit  which  never 
takes  things  on  trust,  but  requires  that  everything  shall 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE      15 

approve  itself  to  reason.  What  makes  a  philosopher 
is  the  presence  of  this  spirit,  balanced  by  the  conviction 
that,  though  everybody  must  find  the  truth  for  himself, 
the  truth  is  to  be  found.  Socrates  then  in  the  First 
Book  comes  before  us  as  Philosophy,  putting  certain  ques- 
tions to  certain  typical  characters  and  examining  certain 
accepted  principles. 

In  Cephalus  we  have  the  gathered  experience  of327Ato 
a  good  man  of  the  generation  which  was  just  passing 
away  when  Socrates  was  beginning  his  philosophical 
work.  Philosophy  comes  to  learn  from  this  experience, 
not  to  criticize  it.  Cicero  remarks  that  it  would  have 
been  inappropriate  for  Socrates  to  question  Cephalus. 
What  he  does  is  an  instance  of  what  Aristotle  tells  the 
student  of  philosophy  to  do  ;  we  should,  he  says,  attend 
to  the  undemonstrated  experience  of  old  men,  because 
experience  has  given  them  the  eye  to  see  rightly1.  The 
sort  of  experience  expressed  in  simple  terms,  of  which 
Cephalus  is  made  the  exponent,  is  not  what  we  can  call 
a  reasoned  experience,  but  the  outcome  of  a  life ;  the 
person  who  has  it  has  not  reflected  upon  it,  and  is  not 
in  a  position  to  answer  the  questions  which  the  philo- 
sopher has  to  ask.  Accordingly,  when  the  criticism 
begins  and  the  experience  is  to  be  analyzed,  Cephalus 
gives  way  to  his  son. 

In  Cephalus'  simple  utterances  some  of  the  philoso- 
phical results  of  the  body  of  the  Republic  are  anticipated. 
In  him  the  delight  of  philosophical  discourse  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  pleasures  of  the  flesh 2 ;  he  has  thereby 
got  rid  of  l  a  raging  and  cruel  master '  like  the  '  tyrant 
love'  of  Book  IX :i.     In  the  course  of  a  long  life  he 

1  Eth.  Nic.  VI.  xi.  6.  -  328  D,  cf.  485  d-e. 

3  572  E  sqq. 


16     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

has  come  to  see  that,  though  poverty  can  mar  happi- 
ness, no  material  prosperity  can  command  it,  and  that 
character  is  the  arbiter  of  happiness 1.  He  retains 
with  a  sort  of  apology  his  old-fashioned  belief  in  the 
poet's  pictures  of  a  future  life,  but  further  he  retains  the 
substantial  truth  of  the  belief  without  the  accompanying 
perversions.  Thus  his  religious  belief  in  its  simple  and 
yet  pure  form  contrasts  with  the  corruption  of  popular 
religion,  which  as  described  in  Book  II  is  a  gross  form  of 
the  theory  of  rewards  and  punishments.  So  the  Republic 
begins,  as  it  ends,  with  the  thought  of  a  future  life. 
With  Cephalus  morality  is  summed  up  in  the  formula, 
'  to  have  been  true  in  word  and  deed,  and  to  have 
paid  one's  debts  to  gods  and  men,'  which,  if  taken 
widely  and  deeply  enough,  says  all  that  one  need  wish 
to  say. 
331  d  to  When  we  come  to  Polemarchus  we  pass  from  the  old 

generation  of  which  Plato  knew  by  report,  to  a  new 
generation  which  has  inherited  the  experience  of  the 
old,  but  in  a  partial  way.  Polemarchus,  son  of  Cephalus 
and  brother  of  Lysias  the  orator,  was  put  to  death  by 
the  Thirty  Tyrants  2 ;  he  is  mentioned  in  the  Pkaedrus  a 
as  a  convert  to  philosophy.  Of  what  sort  of  person 
docs  Plato  mean  him  to  be  a  type?  He  comes  forward 
in  a  confident  way  to  answer  the  question,  What  is  justice 
or  morality?  not  with  the  result  of  his  ovvn  experience, 
but  with  a  borrowed  principle  of  which  he  is  not  the 
master.  We  have  passed  from  a  man  whose  conception 
of  justice,  though  it  would  not  stand  as  a  complete 
philosophical  conception,  is  yet,  in  what  it  means  to 
him,  substantially  the  expression  of  a  good  life,  to  one 

330  a-h,  cf.  591  e.  2  Lysias,  In  Eratosthenent. 

3  257  B. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     17 

who  only  accepts  the  same  conception  from  tradition. 
He  formulates  it  in  a  maxim  borrowed  from  the  poets, 
which  he  only  very  partially  understands,  and  which, 
so  far  as  he  does  understand  it,  is  a  very  imperfect 
definition  of  virtue.  The  maxim  may  or  may  not 
be  a  good  one ;  with  that  we  are  not  concerned  ;  all 
depends  on  how  in  this  case  you  understand  it. 

The  argument  with  Polemarchus  falls  into  two  sec- 
tions. In  the  first  he  is  gradually  led  to  feel  that  he 
does  not  in  the  least  know  what  he  meant  by  his  maxim 
from  Simonides,  that  he  is  at  the  mercy  of  any  one  who 
can  manipulate  his  definition  better  than  himself, and  that 
his  words  can  be  made  to  mean  things  quite  the  contrary 
to  what  he  does  mean.  The  argument  ends  in  a  feeling 
of  intellectual  helplessness,  or  consciousness  of  ignorance 
(airopCa),  which  it  was  the  first  object  of  the  Socratic 
dialogue  to  produce.  The  second  part  of  the  argument 
has  a  more  positive  result :  it  shows  Polemarchus  that 
what  he  really  thought  to  be  the  meaning  of  Simonides, 
his  own  real  moral  belief,  that  it  is  right  to  do  good 
to  friends  and  harm  to  enemies,  does  not  satisfy  the 
elementary  requirements  of  a  moral  principle.  Yo.ii 
cannot  say  morality  isjtQ_da~harm  to  anybody  without 
contradicting  the  very  notion  of  morality.  A  very 
similar  expression  to  that  of  Polemarchus,  the  maxim 
that  we  should  love  our  friends  and  hate  our  enemies, 
is  criticized  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  idea  was 
a  commonplace  of  Greek  popular  morality1.  Thus  in 
the  poems  of  Solon  there  is  a  prayer, '  May  I  be  pleasant 
to  my  friends,  hateful  to  my  enemies.' 

The  method  employed  in  the  first  part  of  the  argu- 
ment (331  D  to  334  b)  is  a  very  good  instance  of  one  form 

1  Cf.  Meno,  71  E. 
VOL.  II.  ,  C 


i8     LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of  what  is  called  the  Socratic  method.  The  actual  con- 
clusion arrived  at  need  not  be  taken  to  be  what  Plato 
thought  the  natural  consequence  of  the  principle  of 
Simonides  ;  that  principle  might  mean  many  different 
things  ;  the  point  to  which  we  must  attend  is  how  and 
why  Polemarchus  allows  himself  to  be  led  to  the  absurd 
conclusion  to  which  he  is  led.  His  definition  of  justice  is 
that  it  consists  in  giving  to  every  man  what  is  '  due '  to 
him  (6(J)€lX6ij.€vov).  Everything  depends  on  the  meaning 
of  d(f)€iX6fxevov,  and  the  object  is  to  get  him  to  explain 
the  conception  which  exists  in  his  mind  in  a  vague 
and  fluid  state.  This  is  done  by  the  Socratic  Z-nayooyij  ; 
which  means  brino-ingr  forward  admitted  facts  or  in- 
stances,  which  resemble  in  some  points  those  on  which 
a  given  idea  is  based,  with  the  view  of  modifying, 
correcting,  or  destroying  that  idea.  We  first  take  that 
sense  of  oQeiKoftevov  in  which  it  means  '  legally  due.' 
This  is  clearly  not  what  Polemarchus  means,  for  an 
instance  can  be  found  in  which  legal  restitution  is  not 
just.  He  then  substitutes  a  vaguer  word  for  'due.' 
TipoarjKov.  Now  'due'  implies  a  something  which  is 
due,  and  a  somebody  to  whom  it  is  due.  To  make  him 
define  his  conception  further,  Socrates  brings  forward 
a  number  of  familiar  instances  of  things  'due'  to  some- 
body, each  of  which  he  is  compelled  to  exclude  from 
the  conception,  thereby  gradually  narrowing  it.  Thus 
the  art  of  medicine  renders  something  which  is  due  to 
somebody.  On  that  analogy  what  docs  justice  render 
that  is  due,  and  to  whom  ?  This  puts  justice  in  the 
same  category  as  the  arts.  What  is  the  point  of  iden- 
tity? It  is  not  a  fanciful  analogy.  Justice  is  a  thing 
which  enables  a  person  to  do  something  (a  hvvanis  which 
makes  a  person  Ivvcltos).     That  is  the  point  of  contact 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE      19 

between  justice  and  the  arts.  The  just  man  is  a  man 
who  has  a  certain  gift  or  power  of  doing  something ; 
the  question  is,  What?  Polemarchus  takes  the  most 
obvious  instance  that  occurs  to  him  in  which  services 
are  rendered  by  justice ;  he  says  the  just  man  is 
most  able  to  help  his  friends  and  hurt  his  enemies  in 
war.  Then,  seeing  that  the  utility  of  justice  must 
extend  to  peace,  he  again  takes  the  most  obvious  in- 
stance, business.  This  enables  Socrates  to  compel  him 
again  to  narrow  the  conception.  Business  is  a  trans- 
action in  which  two  or  more  persons  are  concerned  ; 
what  sort  of  transaction  has  Polemarchus  in  mind  ? 
Money  transactions.  Taking  then  transactions  that 
have  to  do  with  money,  Socrates  shows  that  there  are 
many  of  them  in  which  justice  does  not  enable  a  man 
to  help  his  friend.  Polemarchus  admits  that,  for 
instance,  it  is  not  justice  that  makes  a  man  useful  to 
his  friend  in  buying  a  horse,  but  knowledge  of  horses  ; 
just  as  he  previously  admitted  that  what  enables  a  man 
to  be  useful  to  his  friend  in  sickness  is  the  art  of  medi- 
cine and  not  of  justice. 

By  this  line  of  argument  Polemarchus  is  led.jstep__by 
step  to  empty  the  conception  of  justice  of  everything 
thatJs_of  practicaj^yahie1.  This  happens  because,  using 
a  formula  which  he  does  not  understand,  he  is  at  the 
mercy  of  any  superior  dialectician.  He  ought  to  have 
said,  justice  or  morality  is  not  a  thing  enabling  a  man 
to  do  this  or  that  thing  demanding  specific  knowledge, 
but  a  principle  of  universal  application  enabling  a  man 
to  do  well  everything  that  he  does ;  it  is  not  one  among 
many  arts  of  doing  good,  it  is  the  one  art  of  doing  the 

1  Cf.  the  more  elaborate  argument  on  temperance  or  self-control  in  the 
Charniides. 

C  2 


ao  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    'REPUBLIC 

one  good.  The  whole  setting  of  the  argument  is  so 
strange  to  us  that  it  hardly  makes  any  impression  on  us  ; 
yet  we  might  easily  throw  it  into  a  modern  form.  Take 
any  current  saying  about  morality,  like  '  honesty  is  the 
best  policy,'  and  ask  any  one  taken  at  random  to  explain 
it,  and  you  would  probably  find  him  as  much  confused  as 
Polemarchus. 

The  second  part  of  the  argument  (334  B  to  336  a) 
begins  with  the  confession  of  Polemarchus  that  he  does 
not  know  what  he  meant ;  but  he  still  maintains  that  at 
any  rate  justice  is  to  do  good  to  friends  and  harm  to 
enemies.  Is  this  really  consistent  with  the  most  elemen- 
tary conception  of  morality  ?  The  argument  by  which 
Socrates  shows  that  it  is  not,  seems  purely  verbal ;  in  all 
moral  discussion  however  we  have  to  examine  words. 
What  he  does  is  to  show  that  if  the  words  '  good '  and 
'  evil '  mean  anything  definite,  this  cannot  be  an  adequate 
account  of  morality,  because  it  involves  the  contradiction 
that  good  can  be  the  cause  of  evil.  For  what  is  'hurting' 
a  man  or  doing  him  'harm'?  It  is  to  make  him  worse 
in  respect  of  human  excellence  ;  tl;e_j)iLly_3ViLyjto_liurt 
a  man  is_to_jnake  him_  a-_:w£trse  man  ].  Now  whatever 
else  justice  is,  it  is  a  form  of  human  excellence,  and 
therefore  to  say  it  is  just  to  make  a  man  worse  is  like 
saying  heat  can  make  us  cold.  So  if  Simonides  meant 
what  Polemarchus  thinks  he  did,  it  is  not  true,  and 
probably  that  is  not  what  he  meant. 

The  appeal  to  Simonides  is  an  instance  of  the  constant 
practice  in  Greece  at  that  time  of  appealing  to  the  poets 
as  authorities  on  conduct  and  morals.  It  seems  strange 
to  us  ;  but  nearly  all  the  reflective  literature  of  Greece 
was  then  to  be  found  in  the  poets.     The  poets  were  the 

1  This  Tvas  later  one  of  the  chief  maxims  of  the  Stoics. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     21 

precursors  of  Greek  philosophy ;  they  first  gave  expres- 
sion to  the  thoughts  of  man  about  himself.  It  was  in 
poetry,  not  in  prophecy  as  among  the  Hebrews,  that  the 
early  ideas  of  the  Greeks  found  expression.  The  result 
was  that,  when  people  wanted  to  find  their  ideas  formu- 
lated, they  went  to  the  poets.  In  that  sense  Homer  and 
some  of  the  other  poets  were  a  sort  of  Greek  Bible '. 
They  had  not  indeed  distinct  and  formally  recognized 
authority ;  they  remained  literature  and  poetry  on  the 
same  footing  as  other  literature  and  poetry;  but  so  far 
as  anything  took  the  place  taken  by  the  Bible  in  English 
thought,  it  was  the  older  poets.  In  Plato's  time  the  use 
of  the  poets  in  moral  discussion  had  become  something 
more  than  a  sort  of  instinctive  tradition  ;  learning  to 
interpret  them  formed  a  recognized  branch  of  culture. 
In  this  passage  Socrates  says  '  Simonides  spoke  in 
riddles  like  a  poet  as  he  was2,'  and  in  the  Protagoras 
he  parodies  the  practice  of  interpreting  the  words  of  the 
poets  as  riddles  or  allegories.  This  practice  arose  from 
the  growing  feeling  that  new  ideas  about  life  could  not 
be  got  from  the  poets  by  superficial  reading  ;  they  had 
to  be  read  into  them  or  worked  out  of  them.  Here 
Plato  makes  Socrates'  attitude  to  Simonides  one  of 
ironical  courtesy,  but  his  treatment  of  the  poets  is 
different  on  different  occasions. 

The  analogy  between  morality  and  the  arts,  which 
is  employed  in  the  argument  with  Polemarchus,  appears 
frequently  in  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  It  is  im- 
portant to  realize  what  is  the  exact  point  of  comparison, 
and  what  it  was  that  led  Socrates  to  employ  this  com- 
parison so  frequently.     The  arts  used  as  illustrations  are 

1  Cf.  Rep.  X,  especially  606  E. 

2  See  also  Lysis,  214,  Charmidcs,  162  A,  Theaet.  194  C,  Protag.  339  sq. 


22 


LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 


not,  as  a  rule,  the  fine  arts ;  they  are  either  mechanical 
or  professional  arts,  medicine,  navigation,  shoemaking, 
cookery,  &c.  If  the  art  of  the  sculptor  or  painter  is 
employed  in  illustration,  it  is  treated  in  exactly  the  same 
way  as  these  other  arts.  The  point  of  analogy  is  not 
a  resemblance  between  the  products  of  morality  and  of 
the  arts,  but  a  certain  capacity  or  ability  which  must 
be  common  to  the  artist  and  the  good  man.  Justice  is 
a  power  to  do  something,  and  so  far  it  is  like  any  art. 
The  cook  and  the  shoemaker  are  those  who  possess 
ability  to  do  certain  things  better  than  other  people  ; 
and  this  ability  rests  on  knowledge  of  their  business. 
This  is  the  point  of  analogy  with  morality.  In  order 
to  live  properly  we  must  understand  life  ;  according  to 
a  saying  attributed  to  Socrates,  '  virtue  is  knowledge,' 
which  really  means  that  to  understand  life  is  to  be 
master  of  it.  In  order  to  be  a  successful  artist  at  any- 
thing you  must  understand  the  theory  of  the  thing ;  and 
morality  is  represented  as  an  art  because  the  good  man 
may  be  represented  as  a  masterjof  _.the  art  of_  living,  one 
who  knows  the  circumstances  in  which  he  lives  and  the 
best  mode  of  living.  One  must  not  jump  to  conclusions 
and  think  this  means  that  morality,  or  the  art  of  living, 
can  be  learnt  like  shoemaking.  The  Greeks,  who  saw 
a  point  of  contact  between  morality  and  the  arts  which 
is  a  real  one,  were  not  generally  inclined  to  push  the 
analogy  too  far,  and  Plato  was  at  great  pains  to  draw 
clearly  the  distinction  between  the  art  of  living  and 
other  arts1,  the  most  obvious  difference  being  that  the 
art  of  living  cannot  be  mastered  in  the  same  way.  The 
applications  which  Greek  thinkers  did  make  of  the  com- 
parison were  that  morality  is  nothing  at  all  unless  it 
1  Sec  Mcuo  and  Proiagorus, 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     23 

makes  a  man  practically  a  better  liver,  and  that,  to  live 
well,  you  must  study  life  with  as  much  attention  as  any 
sane  man  would  give  to  learning  his  trade.  It  is  naturally 
supposed  that,  when  the  Greeks  compared  morality  to 
the  arts,  they  were  thinking  of  the  fine  arts  and  meant 
that  there  was  a  resemblance  between  a  moral  life  and 
a  work  of  art.  Many  people  have  looked  upon  a  good 
life  as  a  work  of  art,  and  that  is  a  legitimate  point  of 
view  ;  but  it  was  not  the  characteristic  point  of  view 
of  Plato  or  Aristotle,  though  morality  is  sometimes  in 
their  phraseology  described  as  a  beautiful  thing  (kclKov). 
To  express  in  modern  language  the  analogy  which  they 
found  between  morality  and  the  arts,  one  might  say  that 
morality  means  a  theory  or  principle  carried  out  in  life, 
and  that  we  must  make  life  a  scientific  thing,  following 
the  example  of  the  applied  sciences,  in  which  success  is 
due  to  understanding,  and  failure  to  ignorance.  This 
is  really  the  characteristic  Greek  way  of  looking  at  life, 
for  the  Greeks  were  not  only  an  artistic  but  an  intellectual 
people,  to  whom  such  a  point  of  view  was  natural. 

Thrasymachus,  who  next  enters  into  the  argument,  is  336Kto 
not  to  be  taken  as  representing  Plato's  idea  of  the  sophists  Book  I. 
generally ;  for  there  was  no  one  class  of  people  called 
sophists,  and  they  could  not  be  typified  by  one  individual, 
nor  does  the  antagonism  between  Plato  and  them  appear 
in  one  form  but  in  many.  The  simplest  way  of  describ- 
ing the  sophists  is  to  say  that  they  were  persons  who  in 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  B.C.  supplied  culture  to 
Greece,  or,  in  other  words,  who  made  it  their  profession 
to  diffuse  and  popularize  ideas.  To  understand  the 
position  they  filled  one  should  consider  what  are  the 
agencies  which  diffuse  culture  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
There  is  no   one  agency,  no  class  of  persons  with  one 


24     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

name.  But  there  are,  first,  writers  in  newspapers  and 
periodicals,  by  themselves  a  large  and  various  assortment 
of  people  ;  there  are,  further,  writers  of  fiction  ;  there  are 
preachers  who  diffuse  moral  or  religious  ideas  ;  and  there 
are  men  who,  without  being  in  all  cases  exactly  savants 
or  philosophers,  popularize  certain  ideas  about  science  or 
philosophy.  For  example,  Professor  Huxley,  besides 
being  a  man  of  science,  is  a  popularizer  of  science ;  and 
again,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  though  in  the  first  place 
a  poet,  has  done  a  very  great  deal  to  spread  certain  ideas 
about  life  and  about  religion.  Now  the  Greek  sophists 
are  no  more  to  be  thought  of  as  men  of  a  single  kind 
than  any  one  man  is  to  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the 
spreaders  of  culture  in  England.  The  class  comprised 
the  greatest  and  the  meanest  men,  men  actuated  by  the 
most  various  motives.  Some  were  truly  interested  in 
the  spread  of  education,  others  aimed  at  overthrowing 
certain  beliefs,  others  had  no  higher  object  in  view  than 
making  a  fortune. 

The  conditions  of  Greece  were  different  from  those 
of  England,  and  the  particular  things  in  which  the 
sophists  educated  Greece  were  different  from  those 
taught  in  England  by  any  analogous  agency.  Nearly 
all  of  them  taught  rhetoric  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  power 
of  using  language  as  an  instrument  in  life.  A  modern 
analogy  to  this  teaching  of  rhetoric  may  be  found  in 
the  '  higher  education  '  in  England.  What  is  the  main 
tiling  taught  in  the  English  Public  Schools  and  Uni- 
versities? An  outside  observer  might  say  with  a  good 
deal  of  truth  that  it  was  how  to  use  words,  that  is,  how 
to  understand  literature  and  to  write.  Acquiring  the 
power  to  express  oneself  is  an  indispensable  element 
in  education,  and  in  Greece  it  was  absolutely  necessary 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     25 

in  order  to  get  on  in  life.  The  sophists  therefore 
nearly  all  taught  rhetoric.  But  teaching  language  is 
more  than  teaching  the  use  of  words  ;  one  learns  from 
it  inevitably  how  to  think  and  speak  about  subjects 
of  importance.  The  chief  subjects  of  interest  in  Greece 
were  subjects  bearing  on  public  life  or  politics,  and  the 
sophists  practised  their  pupils  in  speaking  on  these. 
Thus  incidentally,  and  sometimes  intentionally,  the 
teaching  of  the  sophists  was  a  moral  education,  an 
education  in  things  which  have  to  do  with  life.  It  is 
not  true  to  say  of  higher  education  in  England  that 
it  is  '  a  mere  linguistic  training,'  for  linguistic  training 
means  getting  hold  of  and  handling  many  ideas  ;  nor 
is  it  true  that  the  sophistic  education  in  Greece  was 
merely  rhetorical,  for  the  sophists  were,  to  a  great  extent, 
the  moral  educators  of  Greece. 

The  sophists  were  more  or  less  professional  men  ; 
they  made  their  living  by  teaching,  and  from  the  neces- 
sities of  the  case  they  had  to  address  themselves  to 
a  certain  public  and  to  strive  to  get  influence  over 
it,  just  as  a  modern  press-writer  has  to  consider  for 
whom  he  writes,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  has  to  adapt 
his  style  and  matter  to  his  public.  This  makes  a  great, 
perhaps  a  most  vital  distinction  between  a  man  of 
science  and  a  man  who  discharges  a  function  like  that 
of  the  sophists.  A  man  of  science  has  not,  as  such, 
any  interest  in  the  spreading  of  truth  ;  he  is  one  whose 
function  is  to  find  out  what  is  true,  whether  any  one 
else  believes  it  or  not.  Many  of  the  greatest  men  of 
science  have  been  grossly  misunderstood  by  their  con- 
temporaries, and  generally  their  ideas  have  to  filter 
through  others  to  the  world  at  large  :  that  filtering  is 
the  work  of  the  sophists.    Any  one  who  does  this  work 


26  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

stands,  as   a  man  with  a  gospel  to  propagate  stands, 
in  a  difficult  and   dangerous  position  ;    he  has  to  com- 
promise between  the  truest  and  most  effective  way  of 
putting  things ;    the   adjustment  is   difficult,   and  there 
are   sure  to   be  some  who   err  in   it  through  unscrupu- 
lousness.     The   sophists   who  appear    in    Plato   include 
people  as  different  from  one  another  as  a  distinguished 
savant  or  literary  man  is  from  the  most  unscrupulous 
newspaper  writer.      Protagoras  and  Gorgias  are  repre- 
sented   as    honourable    men    desirous    of    doing    good, 
but  still  as    men  who,  while  desiring  to  be  leaders  of 
the  people,  really  only  reflect  popular  ideas.     In  other 
cases  sophists  appear  as  charlatans,  whose  sole  object  is 
to  produce  an  effect  or  to  make  money.     Plato's  attitude 
towards  the  sophists  varies  from  genuine  respect,  always 
touched  with  a  little  irony,  as  towards  Gorgias  and  Pro- 
tagoras, to  scathing  contempt,  as  towards  Euthydemus. 
Thrasymachus 1  belonged  to  the  class  of  sophists  who 
made  their  rhetoric  the  chief  subject  of  their  teaching. 
We    learn    that    his    peculiar   strength    lay    in    teaching 
how  to   appeal    to   the   passions   of  an   audience.      He 
came  from  Chalcedon.      We  have  no  means  of  know- 
ing whether  Plato  is  just  to  him,  nor  does  it  matter  to 
us.     Certain   traits  in  this    picture  of  him   are  common 
to  most  of  Plato's  representations  of  sophists.     Indiffer- 
ence to  truth,  love  of  money,  and  caring  only  for  verbal 
victory,    these    are    characteristics    common    to    all    the 
inferior    sophists    in    Plato,    while    a    disinclination    to 
reason    and    a    tendency    to    harangue    arc    shared    by 
nearly   all.     Put    there   are   special    features  in   Thrasy- 
machus— perhaps  exaggerations  by  Plato  of  the  features 
of  the  real  man  —coarseness,  unmannerliness  (which  is  very 
1  Phaccims,  267  c;  and  Arist.  Rhtt.  1404  a.  14. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     27 

unusual  in  Plato's  dialogues),  shameless  audacity  and 
disregard  of  consequences,  and  cynicism.  In  fact,  it  is 
not  primarily  as  a  teacher  of  rhetoric  that  he  is  repre- 
sented here.  He  appears  first  as  a  man  who  takes 
a  cynical  view  of  political  morality,  and  does  not  really 
believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  morality  at  all.  He 
is  at  the  same  time  a  man  who  assumes  the  garb  of 
science,  and  will  be  nothing  if  not  exact  (a/cpt/3?/s) ;  and 
he  can  put  his  case  in  a  way  which,  even  in  this  bur- 
lesqued form,  would  be  extremely  effective  with  a  popular 
audience  inclined  to  be  unscrupulous.  The  view  of  which 
he  is  the  exponent  is  one  which  was  very  much  in  the 
air  at  that  time,  though  not  often  put  in  this  naked 
form.  We  meet  with  it  in  the  Melian  dialogue  in  Thu- 
cydides 1,  and  in  the  argument  between  the  Swcaios  and 
adiKos  Ao'yos  in  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes.  We  meet 
with  it  also  in  the  Gorgias,  where  it  is  both  stated  and 
answered  in  a  more  serious  and  powerful  manner  ;  for 
Calliclcs  in  that  dialogue  expresses  what  is  essentially 
the  same  position  in  the  most  effective  way  in  which  it 
has  ever  been  put. 

The  argument  with  Thrasymachus  falls  into  two  main 
sections.  The  result  of  the  first  (338  c  to  347  E)  is  gradu- 
ally to  elicit  from  the  ambiguous  formula  of  Thrasyma- 
chus what  he  really  means.  This  is  that  the  real  art  of 
living  is  to  know  how  to  aggrandize  oneself  (-nkeoveKTdv) 
with  impunity  ;  successful  selfishness  is  the  true  end  of 
life;  the  distinction  between  the  so-called  just  and  unjust 
is  only  a  difference  in  the  point  of  view ;  if  selfishness  is 
successful  it  is  just,  if  not  it  is  unjust.  The  second  part 
of  the  argument  (347  E  to  end  of  Book  I)  aims  at  showing 
that,  if  you  take  this  principle  seriously  as  a  principle 

1   Time.  V.  89  sqq. 


28  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    i  REPUBLIC  ' 

on  which  to  live,  it  contradicts  itself,  because  it  is  the 
negation  of  all  principle.  It  cannot  be  made  to  satisfy- 
any  of  the  requirements  of  wisdom,  goodness,  or  happi- 
ness (ao(j)ia,  dper?/,  zvhai{j.ovia).  Jn  manner  both  parts  of  the 
argument  bear  a  resemblance  to  that  with  Polemarchus. 
Certain  terms  are  taken  and  assumed  to  bear  at  least 
a  certain  definite  minimum  of  meaning,  and  it  is  asked 
what  logically  follows  if  they  are  taken  in  their  strict 
meaning  (rw  d/cpi^et  Aoyw).  It  is  essentially  an  argument 
from  the  abstract  meaning  of  certain  conceptions.  It 
must  therefore  strike  us  at  first  as  unsatisfactory  and 
unconvincing.  We  feel  that  Thrasymachus  is  thinking 
all  the  time  of  certain  concrete  facts,  as  we  call  them, 
while  the  argument  against  him  is  not  concerned  with 
the  question  what  the  facts  of  life  are.  It  merely  asks 
whether,  assuming  the  facts  of  life  to  be  as  Thrasymachus 
states  them,  they  satisfy  certain  abstract  conceptions  ; 
whether,  for  example,  if  government  is  universally  selfish, 
it  has  any  right  to  be  called  government.  This  feeling 
is  expressed  by  Glaucon  at  the  beginning  of  Book  II. 
Thrasymachus,  he  says,  has  been  logically  silenced,  but 
the  hearers  have  not  been  convinced  that  there  is  nothing 
in  what  he  says  ;  they  want  Socrates  not  only  to  prove 
to  them  in  argument  that  justice  is  better  than  injustice, 
but  to  show  them  justice  and  injustice  as  operative  prin- 
ciples in  human  life. 

I.  Thrasymachus  begins  (338  c)  by  laying  down  the 
proposition  that  'Justice  is  the  interest  of  the  stronger' 
(Kp€LTT(joi>).  The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  clear  away  the 
ambiguity  of  his  terms.  The  word  KpdrTiov  includes 
the  conceptions  of  stronger  and  better,  and  the  first 
question  is,  In  what  particular  sense  docs  he  mean 
stronger  or  better  ?     Putting  aside  the  meaning  '  physi- 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     29 

cally  stronger,'  Thrasymachus  says  that  he  means  the 
government  or  sovereign  for  the  time  being,  which  is 
a  perfectly  good  meaning,  for  the  government  is  always 
as  a  matter  of  fact  backed  by  force  amongst  other  things. 
By  his  statement  that  justice  is  the  interest  of  the  stronger 
Thrasymachus  means,  then,  that  the  government  legis- 
lates in  its  own  interest.  This  however  is  ambiguous. 
It  is  true  that,  as  he  says,  the  laws  of  democracy  or 
oligarchy  serve  democratic  or  oligarchic  interests,  because 
a  democracy  is  a  community  based  on  the  theory  that  the 
democratic  interest  is  the  true  and  best  interest  of  the 
state,  and  so  with  an  oligarchy.  But  the  statement  may 
mean  something  else  than  this,  namely  that  those  who 
govern  legislate  in  their  own  personal  interests ;  and  it 
soon  becomes  clear  that  this  is  what  Thrasymachus  really 
means. 

The  first  step  in  the  examination  of  the  position  as  it 
has  now  been  explained  (viz.  that  justice  is  the  interest 
of  the  sovereign  or  government)  is  to  lead  Thrasymachus 
to  admit  that  there  is  an  art,  theory,  or  principle  of 
government.  Socrates  does  this  by  appealing  to  the 
fact  that  governments  make  mistakes  as  to  their  interests, 
so  that  what  the  government  commands  may  not  be  its 
real  interest ;  upon  which  Thrasymachus  asserts  (340  C 
sqq.)  that,  in  speaking  of  the  sovereign  or  government 
for  the  time  being,  he  does  not  mean  anybody  who 
happens  to  be  in  power,  but  the  persons  who,  holding 
positions  of  authority,  have  also  the  real  capacity  and 
knowledge  to  govern.  By  government,  he  says,  he 
only  means  the  government  so  far  as  it  does  not  make 
mistakes.  This  at  once  puts  us  on  different  ground, 
and  enables  Socrates  to  advance  to  a  new  and  important 
point.     It  puts  government  in  the  category  of  applied 


30  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC* 

principles  or  arts ;   so  that  we  may  apply  to  it  all  that 
can  be  said  of  art  in  general. 

The  next  step  in  the  argument  is  accordingly  to 
develop  the  abstract  conception  of  art.  How  does  the 
notion  of  '  interest '  (^vfx(p4i>ov)  apply  in  the  case  of  art  ? 
In  what  sense  has  an  art  an  interest,  or  in  what  sense 
has  any  artist  an  interest  qua  artist  ?  (The  form  in 
which  the  question  is  put  implies  the  identification  of 
the  artist  with  the  art ;  the  artist  is  regarded  as  the  art 
embodied.  And  there  is  truth  in  this,  for  the  arts  have 
no  existence  whatever  except  in  given  persons.  Art 
means  the  living  artists  and  what  they  make ;  just  as 
science  again  means  the  living  states  of  certain  persons 
and  the  fruits  of  those  states.)  An  art  may  be  said 
to  have  an  interest  in  two  senses.  First,  there  is  the 
interest  which  would  more  accurately  be  called  the  interest 
of  its  subject-matter.  The  arts  come  into  existence 
because  of  certain  wants,  flaws,  or  imperfections l  in 
certain  things.  There  is  an  art  of  medicine  because  of 
the  imperfection  of  the  human  body ;  there  would  be 
no  such  art  if  the  body  could  be  kept  in  perfect  health 
without  it.  The  interest  of  the  subject-matter  of  the 
art  is  that  these  imperfections  should  be  supplemented  ; 
and  in  a  loose  way  we  may  call  this  the  interest  of  the 
art.  But,  secondly,  what  is  the  interest  of  the  art  in 
the  strict  sense?  An  art  is  a  certain  power  to  meet 
certain  wants  or  supplement  certain  defects  ;  its  interest, 
end,  or  motive  then  can  be  no  other  than  to  do  this  in 
the  best  way  possible  ;  its  interest  is  its  own  perfection  (on 
fiaXta-ra  rekiav  civai,  341  I)).  Suppose  an  artist  to  be  doing 
his  work   as  well  as  he  can  ;    would  he  feel,  qua  artist, 

1  Expressed  by  the  word  -novripla,  whirl)  is  badness  in  the  sense  of 
having  flaws,  the  Latin  vitiutn. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     31 

a  want  of  anything  further?  No;  if  he  is  susceptible 
to  any  other  interest,  it  means  that  he  has  gone  outside 
his  art  and  is  something  else  than  an  artist.  The  art 
in  itself  has  no  want  or  imperfection  for  other  arts  to 
supplement,  it  is  self-sufficient.  The  perfection  of  art 
is  its  own  reward.  The  argument  will  be  clearer  to  us 
if  we  speak  of  the  artist  instead  of  the  art.  We  should 
allow  that  the  doctor  or  painter,  as  doctor  or  painter, 
can  have  no  other  interest  than  to  treat  his  patients  or 
to  paint  as  well  as  he  can,  and,  so  far  as  he  has  any 
other  interest,  he  is  not  for  the  time  being  strictly  doctor 
or  painter.  Of  course  it  is  not  implied  that  he  is  any 
the  worse  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  other 
interests  beyond  his  art. 

Now,  to  apply  this  to  the  art  of  government,  the 
relation  of  arts  to  their  subject-matter  or  material  is 
the  relation  of  governor  to  governed  ;  they  are  masters 
of  it  and  deal  with  it  as  they  like.  When  we  spoke  of 
the  governors  who  were  really  governors,  and  called 
them  the  stronger  or  better,  it  was  implied  that  the 
superiority  which  made  them  real  governors  was  the  same 
superiority  that  any  artist  has  over  his  subject-matter. 
This  subject-matter  is  in  their  case  the  community  over 
which  they  rule:  government  is  called  into  existence  by 
certain  wants  in  its  subject-matter,  society.  Then  if 
there  really  is  such  a  thing  as  this  art  of  government, 
which,  it  is  implied,  exists,  and  if  what  we  have  called 
by  that  name  is  not  to  be  resolved  into  some  other  quite 
different  thing,  the  only  sense  in  which  you  can  speak  of 
an  interest  of  government  is  that  of  securing  the  interest 
of  the  governed.  The  only  interest  of  the  governor,  as 
a  governor,  is  to  govern  well ;  and  if  we  say  justice  is 
the   interest  of  governors,  we  do   not  mean   it    is  their 


32     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  l  REPUBLIC 

interest  as  doing  anything  else  but  govern.  Thrasymachus 
of  course  meant  it  was  their  interest  in  quite  a  different 
sense. 

This  is  a  perfectly  abstract  argument ;  the  result  of  it 
is  that  Thrasymachus  gives  up  the  pretension  to  be 
scientific  and  logical,  which  he  has  so  far  made.  In  his 
answer  (343,  344)  he  does  not  touch  this  argument  but 
appeals  to  the  facts.  He  says  '  look  at  what  governments 
do,'  and  gives  a  cynical,  though  no  doubt  to  some  extent 
a  true,  picture  of  some  Greek  governments.  They  are 
like  shepherds  who  feed  sheep,  not  in  the  interest  of  the 
sheep,  but  in  their  own.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  proceeds 
to  say,  the  honest  and  honourable  man  comes  off  worse 
in  life,  he  makes  less  and  he  is  disliked  more.  The  real 
interest  of  the  stronger  is  injustice  ;  not  injustice  on  the 
small  scale  of  ordinary  crime,  but  injustice  on  a  grand 
scale.  What  is  called  justice  and  what  is  called  injustice 
are  in  reality  the  same  thing,  only  described  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view.  If  the  doer  of  unjust  things 
is  strong  enough,  then  what  he  does  is  called  justice  by 
weaker  men  ;  if  he  is  weak,  then  it  is  called  injustice 
by  stronger  men  and  he  is  punished. 

We  thus  gradually  pass  to  a  different  and  a  wider 
question,  What  is  the  real  nature  of  the  distinction 
between  justice  and  injustice?  and  (ultimately),  What  is 
the  real  aim  or  good  of  human  life  ?  For  Thrasymachus 
does  away  with  any  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  ;  the 
only  principle  he  recognizes  is  that  of  self-interest ;  if 
self-interest  is  successful  it  gets  called  justice,  that  is  all. 

In  the  first  part  of  his  answer  (344  n)  Socrates,  taking 
up  Thrasymachus'  illustration  of  the  shepherd  and  the 
sheep,  appeals  to  the  admitted  fact  that  all  arts  which 
are  paid  are  paid  because  it  is  assumed  that  the  artist, 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE      33 

as  such,  does  not  work  for  his  own  profit.  He  goes  on, 
still  in  a  rather  abstract  way,  to  develop  his  conception 
of  art.  He  has  before  considered  the  nature  of  single 
arts ;  he  now  takes  the  concrete  case  of  a  paid  artist, 
and  shows  that  in  his  case  two  absolutely  distinct  arts 
are  involved,  his  own  specific  art,  and  the  art  of  wage- 
earning  which  is  common  to  him  and  other  artists.  Art 
is  the  ability  (bvvafus)  to  do  a  certain  thing ;  its  product 
is  specific  to  it  (Ibiov).  If,  then,  we  take  a  steersman 
who  gets  money  by  steering,  and  a  doctor  who  gets 
money  by  curing  disease,  we  can  distinguish  the  specific 
product  of  the  particular  art  of  either  of  them,  and  the 
common  product,  money.  That  this  analysis  is  true,  and 
that  we  not  only  can  but  must  thus  distinguish  the  two 
products,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  doctor  may  cease 
to  take  fees,  and  none  the  less  continue  to  heal.  The 
specific  product,  then,  is  not  convertible  with  the  common 
product  of  the  arts.  Coming  to  the  art  of  government, 
Socrates  appeals  to  the  fact  that  rulers  are  paid  for  their 
work.  They  are  paid  either  in  money  or  position,  or 
else  they  have  their  reward  in  avoiding  the  evil  to 
themselves  and  the  community  of  the  bad  government 
which  would  rule  if  they  did  not.  This  shows  that  the 
accepted  theory  of  government  is  that  it  is  not  in  itself 
a  paying  thing ;  and,  further,  Socrates  adds  that  the 
best  governors  are  those  who  do  not  do  the  work  for 
pay  at  all,  or  even  for  reputation,  but  simply  because, 
if  they  did  not  govern,  somebody  else  would  do  it  worse. 
Advancing  upon  what  he  says,  we  might  say  that, 
the  better  a  man  governs,  the  more  he  finds  his  reward 
simply  in  performing  the  function  of  government  as  well 
as  it  can  be  performed. 

Where    Plato   distinguishes  the    art    of  getting   paid 

VOL.  II.  D 


34 


LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 


(fjuo-duiTLKi'j)  from  the  other  arts,  which,  in  his  language, 
it  accompanies,  he  is  making  a  distinction  which,  though 
in  different  language,  we  also  might  really  make.  We 
might,  for  instance,  say  that  a  doctor,  considered  as  a 
person  making  an  income,  was  a  subject  for  the  econo- 
mist or  the  statistician.  To  them  the  only  question 
about  the  doctor  might  be,  What  is  the  price  of  his 
work?  and  it  might  make  no  difference  what  was  the 
specific  nature  of  the  art  by  which  he  got  his  income. 
Conversely,  it  might  have  no  influence  on  the  art  whether 
the  artist  was  making  ,£io,oco  a  year  or  ;£i,ooo.  The 
essential  point  for  which  Socrates  is  contending  may  be 
illustrated  by  what  is  now  a  generally  admitted  principle 
as  to  the  payment  of  public  officers.  It  is  that  they 
should  be  paid  to  such  an  extent  as  will  enable  them  to 
devote  themselves  entirely  to  their  work,  and  will  remove, 
as  far  as  possible,  the  temptation  to  make  money  out  of 
their  offices.  Thus  it  is  complained  that  the  low  pay 
of  judges  in  many  of  the  United  States  has  a  bad 
effect  upon  their  work  as  judges.  The  facts  to  which 
Thrasymachus  appeals  arc  undoubted  facts,  but  it  is 
equally  clear  that  the  ordinary  conscience  of  mankind 
accepts  in  substance  Socrates'  view  of  the  nature  of 
public  authority. 

2.  We  come  now  (347  e)  to  the  second  section  of  the 
argument  with  Thrasymachus.  Having  completed  the 
analysis  of  the  conception  of  government,  Socrates  turns 
to  a  more  important  question :  Is  successful  self-aggran- 
dizement the  true  principle  of  life ;  does  the  life  of  the 
unjust  man  pay  better  than  that  of  the  just  man?  For 
it  has  come  out  in  the  course  of  the  argument  that  this 
is  what  Thrasymachus  actually  meant  by  saying  *  justice 
is    the    interest   of  the   stronger.'     To   make    his    exact 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     35 

meaning  clearer,  he  is  led  to  say  that  what  is  called 
injustice  is,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  words,  virtue  (dper?/) 
and  wisdom  (aocpia). 

What  do  these  words  mean  in  Greek  ?  'Aper?/  is  that 
quality  in  an  agent  in  virtue  of  which  it  does  its  particular 
work  well ;  there  is  no  other  virtue  than  that.  The 
corresponding  adjective  to  aper-q  is  ayaOos,  good.  A  thing 
is  good  of  its  kind  when  it  does  its  work  well.  Thus, 
whatever  else  '  a  good  man '  may  mean,  it  must  mean 
a  man  who  does  his  work  well,  a  man  who  lives  well, 
whatever  meaning  you  may  attach  to  that.  Unfortunately 
our  words  '  goodness '  and  '  good,'  which  are  the  natural 
equivalent  for  aper?/  and  ayados,  no  longer  have  this 
wide  signification  when  they  are  applied  to  men,  and 
4  morality  '  and  '  moral '  never  had  it. 

2o$ia  is  a  specific  form  of  open/  ;  Aristotle,  describing 
the  original  use  of  the  word,  says  it  is  the  virtue  of 
re'xm?  (that  is,  of  art  in  the  widest  sense l).  '  Wise  '  and 
'  cunning '  are  used  in  this  sense  in  the  Old  Testament. 
If  we  look  at  human  life  as  the  subject-matter  of  a  certain 
art,  then  aocpbs  avijp  means  a  man  who  is  master  of  the 
art  of  living.  What  Thrasymachus  means,  then,  is  that 
the  so-called  unjust  man  is  the  man  who  understands  the 
real  art  of  living.  In  applying  these  words,  apenj  and 
(rocpia,  to  injustice,  he  is,  of  course,  putting  his  disbelief 
in  justice  in  the  form  that  would  seem  most  paradoxical 
to  his  hearers  ;  and  this  is  what  Plato  intends.  If,  as 
Socrates  remarks,  Thrasymachus  had  compromised,  and 
had  said  that  injustice  was  advantageous  though  base 
(alaxpov),  it  would  have  been  easier  to  answer  him. 

Next  we  must  understand  what  he  means  by  injustice 

1  Eth.  Nic.  VI.  vii.  1.  He  proceeds  immediately  to  give  it  a  very  different 
sense. 

D  2 


36  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

(abiKia)  ?  The  essence  of  injustice  was  traditionally 
understood  to  lie  in  irXeove^a.  the  attempt  to  get  more 
than  anybody  else  of  the  good  things  of  life.  The  unjust 
man  is  he  who  is  always  trying  to  get  more  of  something 
than  somebody  else.  The  dominant  idea  of  justice  in 
Greek  thought  was  some  sort  of  equality  ;  that  is,  that 
every  one  should  have,  not  actually  the  same  amount, 
but  a  fair  proportion,  measured  according  to  his  position 
in  life  or  by  some  other  standard. 

Thrasymachus  then  claims  for  injustice  that  it  is  the 
true  wisdom  of  life,  and,  as  will  be  understood  from 
what  has  been  said  of  the  meaning  of  the  words,  the 
claim  that  it  is  the  true  virtue  or  goodness  is  taken 
as  standing  or  falling  with  this ;  he  further  claims  that 
it  is  the  true  strength  of  life  ;  and  lastly,  that  it  is 
the  true  happiness  or  welfare  (ei>5cu/xow'a)  of  life.  His 
position  is  now  examined  under  the  head  of  these  three 
claims. 

(a)  On  the  first  of  these  claims  the  substance  of 
Socrates'  argument  (349  A  to  350  c)  may  be  stated  as 
follows.  If  we  examine  the  principle  upon  which  the 
man  who  is  perfectly  unjust  acts,  we  find  it  consists 
in  the  denial  that  there  is  any  principle  at  all.  He  says, 
Let  every  man  get  what  he  can  ;  because  he  recognizes 
no  distinction  of  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  and 
does  not  allow  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  a  limit 
beyond  which  he  ought  to  get  no  more.  Thrasymachus 
is  taken  as  accepting  this  view,  and  asserting  that  the 
man  with  no  principle  is  the  true  artist  in  life  (the  aro(f>6s). 
Now  let  us  compare  such  a  man  with  a  good  artist  or 
craftsman  in  other  arts.  In  all  other  arts  the  man  who 
is  without  the  idea  of  right  or  wrong  (in  the  wider  sense 
of  the  words),  or  the  idea  of  a  limit  at  which  he  must 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     37 

stop,  is  not  the  man  who  understands  his  art ;  he  is  the 
man  who  knows  nothing  about  it.  For  suppose  two 
musicians  meet  over  the  tuning  of  an  instrument;  if  they 
are  really  musicians,  they  at  once  recognize  a  principle 
of  right  and  wrong,  which  sets  a  limit  beyond  which  it 
would  never  occur  to  them  to  go;  in  plain  English,  if 
the  instrument  is  rightly  tuned,  the  musician,  the  man 
who  knows,  would  never  think  of  tuning  it  further.  Or. 
if  two  good  doctors  meet  in  consultation,  when  the  one 
has  treated  the  patient  rightly  the  other  would  not 
depart  from  the  right  treatment  in  order  to  outdo  him. 
This  idea  of  a  limit,  up  to  which  you  try  to  go 
and  beyond  which  you  do  not  try  to  go  is  that  of 
a  standard  of  perfection  or  of  rightness  which  you  try 
to  hit  off  exactly.  It  appears,  then,  that  in  all  arts  the 
mark  of  skill  and  understanding  is  that  the  man  who  has 
them  (the  <rocf)6s  or  k-nunrifxodv)  knows  when  that  limit  is 
reached.  He  does  not,  Plato  says,  go  beyond  another 
person  who  understands  his  art ;  or,  as  we  should  rather 
say,  he  does  not  go  beyond  what  he  knows  to  be  the 
principle  of  his  art.  If  this  then  is  the  case  with  all 
good  craftsmen,  the  unjust  man,  the  man  of  limitless 
acquisition  (irXeove^ia),  would  seem  to  be  the  type  of  the 
bad  and  ignorant  craftsman. 

Socrates'  argument  seems  unconvincing,  not  only  be- 
cause of  its  abstract  character  but  for  a  further  reason. 
It  goes  very  much  to  the  root  of  the  whole  question, 
and  people  are  very  seldom  able  to  face  the  ultimate 
issues  raised  by  any  question.  There  are  several  other 
passages  in  Plato  that  throw  light  on  the  argument 
here.  In  the  Politicus  two  kinds  of  '  measure '  (ixerpov) 
are  distinguished — that  by  which  things  are  measured 
against  each  other  in  respect  of  magnitude,  and  that  by 


38  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

which  things  are  measured  against  each  other,  not  in 
respect  of  their  mere  magnitude,  but  in  respect  of  some 
proportion  between  them  ;  and  Plato  goes  on  to  say 
that  all  arts  depend  for  their  existence  on  measure  in 
the  latter  sense  *.  A  passage  in  the  Gorgias  expresses 
much  the  same  antithesis  as  we  find  here.  Callicles  is 
made  to  maintain,  though  more  forcibly,  the  same 
position  as  Thrasymachus,  and  it  is  shown  against  him, 
more  fully  than  here,  that  if  you  are  quite  logical  in 
this  position  you  make  life  strictly  impossible,  that  the 
logically  non-moral  life  is  logically  impossible  and  self- 
destructive  ;  proportion  (t<roV?/?  yeoo^erpi/07)  is  the  great 
principle  that  holds  life  and  the  universe  together 2.  In 
the  Pkilebus,  Socrates  talks  of  limit  (-rrepas) ;  this  is 
essentially  what  is  elsewhere  described  as  measure  ; 
it  is  what  makes  things  measurable  which  would  be 
incomparable  and  immeasurable  without  it ;  and  this 
principle  is  declared  to  be  that  on  which  not  only  arts 
but  also  laws  of  nature  depend 3.  In  various  other 
passages  we  have  the  same  idea  applied  equally  to 
morality  and  the  life  of  man,  to  nature  and  its  processes, 
and  to  art  and  its  processes. 

There  is  one  total  misunderstanding  of  this  idea  which 
we  must  avoid.  The  modern  associations  of  the  word 
'  limit,'  and  sometimes  also  those  of  the  word  '  measure,' 
are  the  exact  opposite  of  those  which  these  words  had  for 
Plato.  The  word  limit  certainly  suggests  to  us  something 
that  stops  progress,  and  prevents  us  reaching  perfection 
in  anything.  The  Greek  associations  of  the  words,  at  least 
in    Plato  and  Aristotle,  are  quite  different.     The  idea  of 

'/'.■.■'■'.  '•  is  in  this  passage  iliat  we  find  tlio  nearest 

verbal  approach  in  Plato  to  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  the  '  mean.' 
1  Gorgias,  507  E  sq.  :i  Philebus,  25  B  sqq. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE      39 

limit  is  that  of  something  on  the  attainment  of  which 
perfection  is  attained  ;  it  is  not  that  which  puts  a  stop 
to  progress,  but  that  without  which  progress  would  be 
a  meaningless  process  ad  infinitum.  Both  ways  of  using 
the  word  are  justifiable  ;  but  it  is  a  difference  in  the  use 
of  language  which  indicates  a  fundamental  difference 
between  our  ways  of  looking  at  things.  The  modern 
conception,  which  most  answers  to  the  Greek  idea  of 
measure,  is  that  of  law.  In  our  conceptions  of  nature 
and  morality  the  idea  of  law  is  becoming  more  and  more 
dominant.  This  idea  also  admits  of  two  different  appli- 
cations. Law  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  restraining  and 
repressive  force,  or  it  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  undc- 
viating  mode  of  activity ;  the  latter  is  the  true  mean- 
ing of  '  laws  of  nature,'  and  it  is  also  the  true  meaning 
of 'measure'  in  Plato.  To  Plato  and  Aristotle  alike 
the  natural  way  of  expressing  the  truth  that  there  is 
some  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  or  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  moral  principle,  is  to  say  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  limit  or  measure,  without  which  it  is 
literally  true  that  human  life  would  be  impossible.  The 
whole  of  the  Aristotelian  doctrine,  that  virtue  is  a  mean 
between  two  extremes,  is  an  expression  of  the  same  con- 
ception of  measure,  that  the  right,  or  good,  or  beautiful, 
always  appears  as  something  which  is  neither  too  much 
nor  too  little.  With  the  Greeks  the  presence  of  such 
a  standard  is  the  symbol  of  the  presence  of  reason  in 
the  world,  and  in  morals,  and  in  the  whole  of  human 
life.  It  is  not  a  moral  conception,  but  a  perfectly 
universal  conception  applied  to  human  life.  The 
characteristically  Greek  way  of  describing  morality  is 
to  say,  that  the  moral  man  is  the  man  who  recognizes 
that  there  is  a  principle.     That   is  to  the  Greeks  the 


40  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

point  of  contact  between  morality,  art,  science,  and 
everything  in  which  reason  is  concerned.  Thus  the 
issue  involved  in  this  argument  with  Thrasymachus 
is  the  most  elementary  issue  conceivable ;  that  is,  it 
goes  very  much  further  back  than  we  are  accustomed 
to  go  in  our  discussions  of  morality.  The  question  is 
whether  there  is  or  is  not  any  principle  in  human  life 
at  all.  We,  in  our  discussions  about  what  is  'right'  or 
1  good,'  generally  move  in  a  much  more  concrete  atmo- 
sphere. (The  answer  that  Thrasymachus  could  at  once 
have  made  to  the  argument  is,  of  course,  that  by  the 
man  who  takes  all  he  can  (the  TrAeo^e/cn/s-)  he  did  not 
mean  the  man  who  takes  absolutely  and  literally  all  he 
can  without  recognizing  any  principle  or  any  limit  at  all. 
But  to  make  this  answer  would  have  been  to  surrender 
the  position  he  had  undertaken  to  defend.) 

(b)  Injustice,  or  taking  all  one  can,  has  further  been 
represented  as  power  or  strength.  Under  this  head  of 
the  argument  (351  A  to  352  d)  the  issue  is  again  between 
having  some  principle  and  having  none.  Thrasymachus' 
contention  is  met  by  showing  that,  if  we  take  any 
instance  of  the  successful  exertion  of  force,  we  always 
find  present  some  element  of  unity,  some  standard 
which  the  people  acting  together  tacitly  recognize  ; 
and  that  absolutely  taking  all  one  can,  absolute  absence 
of  principle,  means  incapacity  to  act  together^  and  con- 
sequently disintegration  and  dissolution.  In  any  society, 
in  the  large  society  of  the  state,  in  an  army,  or  in 
a  small  body  of  men  such  as  a  band  of  robbers,  success 
in  injustice  is  always  due  to  some  implicit  recognition 
of  justice.  This  leads  Socrates  to  the  assertion  that 
justice  is  not  a  term  describing  a  mere  external  form 
of  action,  but  something  with  a  power  or  force  (hyvafxa) 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     41 

of  its  own,  which  wherever  it  exists,  either  in  society 
or  in  the  individual  soul,  will  always  make  itself  felt  ; 
and,  passing  to  the  individual  soul,  he  points  out  that 
this  principle  of  union  is  the  condition  of  strength 
in  it  as  in  society.  Here  we  have  a  transition  from 
the  view  of  justice  as  a  matter  of  external  conduct 
to  the  view  of  it  as  a  living  principle  in  the  human 
soul  which  works  itself  out  in  the  conduct  of  life.  This 
is  the  first  indication  of  a  manner  of  looking  at  the 
subject  which  dominates  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the 
Republic.  The  principle  of  absolute  injustice  means 
the  impossibility  of  union  with  oneself,  with  other  men, 
and  with  God  ;  and  wherever  strength  is  found,  it  is  in 
virtue  of  some  admixture  of  justice  or  unity. 

(c)  There  remains  the  contention  that  the  unjust  man 
is  happier  (more  evbaCiMnv)  or  'lives  better'  than  the  just 
man.  In  answer  to  this  Plato  (352  D  to  end  of  Book  I) 
develops  very  simply  a  conception  which  is  the  funda- 
mental conception  of  Aristotle's  Ethics.  In  the  first  Book 
of  the  Ethics 1,  Aristotle  asks  the  question,  What  is  hap- 
piness (evbaiiJLovLa),  what  is  the  true  thing  to  live  for  ?  And 
to  answer  it  he  asks,  What,  if  any,  is  the  function  (Zpyov) 
of  man  as  man  ?  Virtue  (aperry)  he  defines  as  strictly 
correlative  to  function  ;  it  simply  means  excellence  of 
work,  excellence  in  the  performance  of  function2;  and 
to  understand  what  is  said  of '  virtue '  in  Greek  thought 
one  must  realize  that  this  is  its  meaning.  In  the 
present  passage  the  argument  of  Socrates  is  as  follows  : — 
Everything  which  has  a  function — everything,  that  is  to 
say,  which  does  or  produces  anything — has  a  corre- 
sponding virtue.  The  function  of  a  thing  is  that  for 
which   it  is  the   sole   agent,  or   the   best   agent.     The 

1  I.  vii.  9-15.  2  II.  vi.  1-3. 


42  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

virtue  of  a  thing  is  that  quality  in  it  which  enables 
it  to  perform  its  function ;  virtue  is  the  quality  of 
the  agent  when  it  is  working  well.  For  example,  the 
function  of  the  eye  is  to  see,  and  that  of  the  ear  to 
hear,  and  their  virtues  are  seeing  and  hearing  well. 
Now  the  soul  of  man  is  a  thing  with  a  function ; 
it  may  be  said  to  have  various  functions,  but  they 
may  be  expressed  in  general  terms  by  saying  that  its 
function  is  to  live  (the  '  soul '  meant  to  the  Greeks  the 
principle  of  life).  Its  virtue,  then,  will  be  that  quality 
which  enables  it  to  live  well.  So,  if  we  have  been 
right  in  saying  that  not  injustice  but  justice  is  the  virtue 
of  man,  it  is  the  just  man  and  not  the  unjust  who  will 
live  well ;  and  to  live  well  is  to  be  happy. 

Here  again  the  argument  is  intensely  abstract.  We 
should  be  inclined  to  break  in  on  it  and  say  that  virtue 
means  something  very  different  in  morality  from  what  it 
means  in  the  case  of  seeing  or  hearing,  and  that  by 
happiness  we  mean  a  great  many  other  things  besides 
what  seems  to  be  meant  here  by  living  well.  All 
depends,  in  this  argument,  on  the  strictness  of  the  terms, 
upon  assuming  each  of  them  to  have  a  definite  and 
distinct  meaning.  The  virtues  of  a  man  and  of  a  horse 
are  very  different,  but  what  is  the  common  element  in 
them  which  makes  us  call  them  both  virtue  ?  Can  we 
call  anything  virtue  which  docs  not  involve  the  doing 
well  of  the  function,  never  mind  what,  of  the  agent  that 
possesses  the  virtue?  Is  there  any  other  sense  in  which 
we  can  call  a  thing  good  or  bad,  except  that  it  does 
or  docs  not  do  well  that  which  it  was  made  to  do? 
Again,  happiness  in  its  largest  sense,  welfare,  well-being. 
or  doing  well,  is  a  very  complex  thing,  and  one  cannot 
readily  describe  in  detail  all  that  goes  to  make  it  up  ;  but 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE     43 

does  it  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  human  soul, 
man's  vital  activity  as  a  whole,  is  in  its  best  state,  or 
is  performing  well  the  function  it  is  made  to  perform  ? 
If  by  virtue  and  by  happiness  we  mean  what  it  seems 
we  do  mean,  this  consequence  follows :  when  men  are 
agreed  that  a  certain  sort  of  conduct  constitutes  virtue, 
if  they  mean  anything  at  all,  they  must  mean  that  in 
that  conduct  man  finds  happiness.  And  if  a  man  says 
that  what  he  calls  virtue  has  nothing  to  do  with  what 
he  calls  happiness  or  well-being,  then  either  in  calling 
the  one  virtue  he  does  not  really  mean  what  he  says, 
or  in  calling  the  other  happiness  he  does  not  really  mean 
what  he  says.  This  is  substantially  the  position  that 
Plato  takes  up  in  this  section. 

The  last  two  sections  of  the  argument  prepare  the 
way  for  the  first  half  of  Book  II.  The  view  of  morality 
is  becoming  less  external,  we  are  invited  to  regard  it  now 
as  an  inherent  activity  of  the  soul.  In  Book  II  Glaucon 
and  Adeimantus  demand  that  this  idea  should  be  taken 
up  and  developed. 

Before  leaving  Book  I,  we  may  consider  two  further 
incidental  points.  (1)  Thrasymachus  is  made  to  refer 
bitterly  to  the  well-known  'irony'  (dpoovda)  of  Socrates 
(337  A).  In  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle1  the  'ironical'  man 
[dpow)  is  a  person  who  in  his  conversation  represents 
himself  at  less  than  his  actual  worth.  In  this  general 
sense  '  irony '  is  a  social  quality  which  is  the  extreme 
opposite  of  boastfulness  or  vanity.  It  becomes  affecta- 
tion or  false  modesty  when  a  person  is  always  depre- 
ciating himself,  and  we  generally  think  that  such 
a  person  is  in  reality  anything  but  modest.  But  the 
'  irony '  of  Socrates  was  not  a  mere  grace  of  manner 

1  IV.  vu. 


44  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

in  social  behaviour  ;  still  less  was  it  affectation  or  mock 
humility.  It  arose  in  him  from  a  genuine  sense  of  the 
inexhaustibility  of  knowledge.  We  may  compare  his 
expressions  of  it  with  the  question  in  the  Gospels,  '  Why 
callest  thou  me  good  ? '  This  is  the  deeper  significance 
of  the  Socratic  '  irony '  ;  compared  with  what  is  to  be 
known,  neither  Socrates  nor  anybody  else  knows  any- 
thing ;  he  was  wiser,  he  said,  than  those  with  whom  he 
conversed  only  because  he  knew  his  own  ignorance1. 
But  the  people  with  whom  he  spoke  were,  no  doubt, 
generally  more  ignorant  than  he,  and  if  one  had  been 
a  stranger  talking  with  him,  this  perpetual  assumption 
of  ignorance  would  have  appeared  a  sort  of  humorous 
irony,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  designed  to  make 
Socrates  appear  to  advantage 2.  (One  may  compare 
the  expression  '  irony  of  fate  '  ;  we  speak  of  the  irony 
of  fate  when  we  see  a  man  behaving  in  a  way  which 
shows  that  he  is  quite  unconscious  of  the  real  circum- 
stances.) 

(2)  Thrasymachus  in  the  Republic  (337  d)  requires  to  be 
paid  for  his  contribution  to  the  discussion.  It  is  always 
represented  in  Plato  as  one  of  the  contrasts  between 
Socrates  and  the  sophists  that  the  latter  took  pay 
and  the  former  did  not.  We  know  from  Xenophon 
that  Socrates,  like  Plato,  regarded  this  practice  of 
taking  pay  not  indeed  as  wrong,  but  as  marking 
a  certain  inferiority  in  the  receiver.  Xenophon  in 
saying  how  little  Socrates  cared  about  luxury  or 
money,  mentions  that  he  never  demanded  pay  for 
his    teaching.       'In    this.'    he    tells    us,    'he    conceived 

1    Apology,  2i  11. 

I  "i-  the  irony  of  Socrates  compare  Symp.  216  B,  Thcaet.  150  C,  Mtno, 
Ho  \.  and  Xen.  Mini.  I.  ii.  36,  and  IV.  iv.  9. 


REPRESENTATIVE    OPINIONS    ABOUT    JUSTICE      45 

he  was  assuring  his  liberty,  for  he  felt  that  those 
who  took  pay  for  the  advantage  of  their  society 
made  themselves  the  slaves  of  those  who  paid  them.' 
It  was  not  money  but  the  acquisition  of  good  friends 
that  he  regarded  as  his  greatest  gain1.  Xenophon 
tells  us  too  that  Antiphon  reproached  Socrates  with 
not  taking  money,  because  it  showed  that,  though  he 
was  an  honest  man,  he  did  not  know  his  own  interests. 
Socrates  answered  that  he  regarded  wisdom  as  beauty, 
and  thought  that  to  sell  wisdom  for  money  was  to 
prostitute  it ;  that  is  to  say,  that  truth  is  something 
which  cannot  be  bought  or  sold,  and  to  put  a  money 
value  on  it  is  to  degrade  it. 

The  notion  that  there  is  a  degiadation  in  taking  pay 
for  anything  seems  absurd  to  the  modern  mind.  The 
whole  question  is  whether,  and  how  far,  money  taken 
affects  the  motive  and  attitude  of  the  person  who  takes 
it.  Some  persons  are  not  affected  by  it  in  the  smallest 
degree  ;  but  there  is  a  very  real  danger  in  the  relation 
of  the  receiver  of  pay  to  the  giver,  and  with  the  majority 
it  does  diminish  independence  and  clearness  of  view.  It 
is  often  felt  now,  chiefly  perhaps  about  the  clergy,  but 
also  and  with  equal  justice  about  barristers,  doctors,  and 
men  of  any  profession,  that  every  kind  of  work  tends 
to  be  lowered  by  becoming  a  profession.  This  is  exactly 
what  Socrates  and  Plato  seem  to  have  felt  about  the 
sophists,  and  it  is  quite  a  true  feeling.  No  doubt,  by 
being  professional  men  whose  business  it  was  to  com- 
municate wisdom,  the  sophists  put  themselves  more 
under  the  public  that  paid  them  than  they  would 
otherwise  have  been,  and  exposed  themselves  more 
to    the    danger    of    confounding    what    was    true    with 

1   Xen.  Man.  I.  ii.  6  and  60;  v.  6  ;  vi.  13,  14. 


46  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

what  was  likely  to  please  the  public.  At  the  same 
time  there  is  no  ground  for  accusing  the  greater  sophists 
of  having  been  avaricious ;  Protagoras,  for  example, 
is  said  to  have  left  it  to  his  hearers  to  pay  him  what 
they  thought  fit. 


III.    STATEMENT    OF    THE    PROBLEM 
OF   THE    'REPUBLIC 

[Republic,  II.  to  367  E.] 

At  the  end  of  Book  I,  Plato  himself  gives  us 
a  criticism  upon  it.  He  makes  Socrates  confess  that 
in  one  way  the  result  of  the  argument  is  nothing, 
because  we  have  not  settled  what  justice  is,  and 
cannot  therefore  determine  whether  it  is  a  virtue 
and  whether  it  makes  men  happy.  We  have  been 
discussing  the  concomitant  circumstances  of  the  thing 
without  knowing  what  it  is  in  itself1. 

If  we  ask  what  the  discussion  has  done,  we  may 
say  that  it  has  shown  several  things  which  justice 
cannot  be ;  that  various  leading  conceptions,  those, 
for  example,  of  art,  wisdom,  function,  interest,  have  been 
analyzed  ;  and  further  that  it  has  been  shown  that 
the  theory  of  Thrasymachus  in  its  naked  form  will 
not  account  for  the  facts — that  consistent  and  thorough- 
going selfishness  will  not  give  one  a  working  principle 
of  life  at  all.  But  Glaucon  and  Adeimantus  feel  that, 
though  Thrasymachus  has  been  silenced,  the  argument 

1  Cf.  Me  no,  71  B. 


43  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC 

is  not  convincing.  They  undertake  to  renew  his  con- 
tention, and  they  demand  an  answer  quite  different 
from  that  which  has  so  far  been  given.  They  want, 
as  Glaucon  says,  to  be  shown  what  justice  and  in- 
justice are  in  themselves,  as  powers  in  the  soul  of 
man ;  or.  as  Adeimantus  says,  not  merely  to  have 
it  logically  proved  that  justice  is  better  than  injustice, 
but  to  be  shown  the  actual  effects  of  each  upon  the 
possessor.  This  is  the  question  to  which  the  last 
sections  of  Book  I  have  led. 

In  passing  then  from  Book  I  to  Book  II,  we  pass 
from  the  region  of  logic,  and  from  an  analysis  of  terms 
in  which  all  depends  on  their  being  used  precisely  and 
consistently,  to  the  region  of  psychology  and  to  the 
analysis  of  concrete  human  nature  (an  analysis  which 
leads  Plato  to  construct  an  imaginary  community  upon 
the  basis  of  his  psychology).  We  pass  at  the  same 
time  from  the  consideration  of  utterances  of  individual 
experience,  borrowed  and  half-understood  maxims,  and 
paradoxes  of  cynical  rhetoricians,  to  criticism  of  the 
voice  of  society  and  public  opinion,  as  it  speaks  through 
its  recognized  leaders  or  in  the  everyday  intercourse 
of  social  and  family  life.  To  notice  one  more  feature 
of  the  transition  from  Book  I  to  Book  II,  we  pass 
from  a  Socrates  represented  as  knowing  nothing,  but 
simply  listening,  questioning,  and  refuting,  to  a  Socrates 
represented  as  the  exponent  of  a  new  and  higher 
morality. 

The  two  personages  through  whom  this  transition 
is  made,  Glaucon  and  Adeimantus,  are  of  a  type 
that  Plato  takes  an  interest  in  representing.  They 
cannot  be  better  described  than  in  the  words  of 
Adeimantus   himself,  where  he    speaks   of  'young   men 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       49 

of  the  day,  who  are  gifted  (ev^ueis),  and  able  to  flit 
over  the  surface  of  public  opinion  and  draw  infer- 
ences from  it '  as  to  the  true  principle  of  life  (365  a). 
They  are  greatly  interested  in  speculation,  convinced 
in  their  hearts  that  justice  is  better  than  injustice, 
but  unable  to  defend  their  conviction  against  the  voice 
of  public  opinion  in  its  various  manifestations ;  they 
arc  dissatisfied  with  the  modern  enlightenment,  but 
cannot  see  where  the  real  flaw  in  it  lies,  and  how  it 
should  be  corrected.  They  differ  from  one  another  in 
character,  as  Professor  Jowett  points  out ;  but  one 
feeling,  common  to  both,  is  at  the  root  of  all  they 
say :  both  are  puzzled  by  the  apparent  incongruity 
between  morality  itself  and  the  external  circumstances 
amid  which  it  exists,  between  the  being  of  things 
and  the  seeming,  the  externals  of  life  which  all  seem 
to  point  one  way,  and  the  principles  which,  they  are 
themselves  convinced,  point  the  other  way.  The 
literature  of  all  peoples  shows  that  this  has  always 
been  one  of  the  first  problems  to  strike  the  human 
mind. 

Glaucon  begins  with  a  classification  of  good  things, 
based  on  the  distinction  of  things  good  in  themselves 
and  things  good  for  their  ulterior  results.  He  and 
Adeimantus  are  persuaded  that  justice  is  good  in 
itself  and  for  its  results,  but  to  realize  the  intrinsic 
good  of  justice  they  wish  to  have  it  examined  abso- 
lutely apart  from  its  results ;  for  until  you  distinguish 
morality  from  the  external  or  tangible  results  and 
accompaniments  which  are  always  found  connected 
with  it,  you  cannot  be  sure  what  it  is  you  are  dealing 
with.  Thrasymachus'  position  had  resulted  in  reducing 
morality  to  certain  external  results  of  conduct,  and  had 

VOL.  it.  E 


50  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

in  fact  done  away  with  any  real  moral  distinctions. 
The  object  to  aim  at  was  to  get  as  much  material 
prosperity  as  one  could ;  success  in  this  was  called 
justice,  and  failure  was  called  injustice;  there  was  no 
essential  morality,  but  only  conventional.  Accordingly 
Glaucon  requires  that  the  distinction  between  justice 
and  injustice  should  be  represented  in  the  most  naked 
way.  He  will  have  justice  put  on  one  side,  and  on 
the  other  side  he  will  have  put  all  the  material  results 
of  justice  that  can  be  separated  from  it.  Strip  justice 
bare,  he  says  ;  set  against  it  all  the  good  things  that 
may  often  go  with  it  but  are  not  connected  with  it 
really,  and  may  equally  result  from  being  thought  just 
when  one  really  is  unjust ;  and  then,  convince  me  that 
this  bare  principle,  with  nothing  to  show  for  itself  except 
itself,  is  better  worth  living  for  than  everything  that  can 
be  set  against  it. 

This  is  the  view  which  both  young  men  wish  Socrates 
to  maintain.  They  themselves,  for  the  sake  of  putting 
before  him  something  to  answer,  give  expression  to  views 
opposed  to  it,  current  views,  which  are  not  their  own  but 
which  they  have  a  difficulty  in  withstanding. 

First,  Glaucon  represents  the  view  which  troubles  him 
most.  It  is  that  morality  is  indeed  a  good  thing,  but 
is  only  good  because  it  secures  certain  external  results ; 
it  is  not  the  'natural  good'  (the  best  thing),  but  a  com- 
promise between  a  greater  good  and  a  greater  evil ;  the 
greater  good  is  to  obtain  the  same  external  rewards 
without  justice,  the  greater  evil  is  to  suffer  the  retribution 
of  injustice.  There  arc  three  distinct  points  in  Glaucon 's 
representation  of  this  view.  First  (358  E  to  359  b),  he 
gives  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  justice,  explaining  the 
nature  of  justice  by  showing  how  it  arose.     Secondly 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       51 

(359  B  to  360  d),  he  maintains  that  justice  is  only  pursued 
by  men  as  a  second-best  thing,  and  not  naturally  but 
against  their  real  desire ;  if  we  dared,  he  says,  we  should 
all  be  unjust.  Thirdly  (360  E  to  362  c),  he  argues  that 
in  this  the  general  feeling  of  mankind  is  reasonable, 
because  if  we  look  at  the  facts  we  see  that  all  the 
advantages  of  life  are  on  the  side  of  injustice,  or  at  any 
rate  may  be  if  the  unjust  man  is  clever.  The  conclusion 
is  this :  it  is  at  any  rate  a  possibility  that  you  might 
have  to  choose  between,  on  the  one  side,  all  the  powers 
and  all  the  material  advantages  of  life,  and  on  the  other 
side  the  naked  principle  of  justice.  In  that  case,  can 
you  say  that  justice  is  the  better  of  the  two?  And  if 
you  do  say  so,  then  what  do  you  understand  by  '  good  '  ? 
Adeimantus  gives  expression  to  two  different  beliefs. 
The  first  (362  D  to  363  e)  is  one  which  externally  seems 
the  direct  opposite  of  that  described  by  Glaucon,  but 
which  really  tends  to  the  same  practical  results.  It  says, 
Be  just ;  for  justice  pays  best  in  this  world  and  the  next ; 
on  the  whole,  the  just  man  prospers.  It  says,  Honesty 
is  the  best  policy,  and  it  says  nothing  more.  It  does 
not  add,  If  you  can  be  immoral  with  impunity,  so  much 
the  better.  Thus  it  is  widely  different  from  Glaucon's 
position  ;  and  yet,  like  Glaucon's,  it  resolves  justice  into 
the  seeking  of  external  rewards.  And  therefore  it  leads, 
as  Adeimantus  points  out,  to  the  same  conclusion, 
namely  that  the  really  valuable  thing  is  the  reputation 
of  justice  and  not  justice  itself.  This,  he  says,  is  the 
view  which  is  inculcated  in  ordinary  education  and  in 
family  life.  The  second  view  he  expresses  (363  E  to  365  a) 
is  this  :  Justice  is  in  itself  the  best  thing  in  the  world, 
but  injustice  is  much  pleasanter,  and,  if  proper  steps  be 
taken,  can  be  made  to  secure  as  satisfactory  results ;  for, 

E  2 


52  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

to  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  the  gods  are  not  just 
themselves,  but  can  be  bought  over  with  the  fruits  of 
injustice.  This  is  the  most  thorough-going  demolition 
of  justice,  for  it  asserts  that  the  divine  nature,  its 
fountain-head,  can  be  corrupted. 

The  passage  in  which  these  various  beliefs  are  expressed 
has  a  great  incidental  interest  for  us  from  the  light  that 
it  throws  on  certain  opinions  current  at  that  time  about 
358  e  to  religion,  political  right,  and  law.  First,  as  we  have  seen, 
Glaucon  gives  us  a  popular  theory  of  the  nature  of 
justice,  explaining  it  by  its  historical  origin.  This  is  the 
earliest  written  statement  that  we  have  of  a  theory 
which  has  ever  since  played  a  great  part  in  the  world, 
the  theory  that  moral  obligations  have  their  origin 
(whether  wholly  or  in  part)  in  contract  (^wfl)jq) !.  This 
theory  can  be  and  has  been  applied  in  the  most  opposite 
interests  and  in  defence  of  the  most  opposite  positions. 
As  Glaucon  states  it,  and  as  we  here  have  to  deal  with 
it,  it  is  simply  this :  In  the  nature  of  things  to  do  in- 
justice is  best,  but  men  have  found  by  experience  that 
they  cannot  do  it  with  impunity,  and  the  greatest  evil 
is  to  suffer  injustice  without  power  of  retaliation.  Men 
have  therefore  compromised  the  matter  by  making  laws 
and  institutions  which  save  them  from  the  worst  evil, 
but  do  not  secure  them  the  greatest  good. 

The  conception  of  an  original  contract  upon  which 
society  is  based  is,  emphatically,  unhistorical  (in  some 
writers,  who  have  used  it,  it  is  avowedly  fictitious),  but 
it  has  not  the  less  been  influential.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  examples  of  the  reflexion  of  an  idea  into 
the  past  to  give  it  apparent  solidity  and  concrcteness. 
In  this  respect  it  is  like  the  beliefs  about  a  golden  age 
1  See  Maine's  Ancient  Law. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       53 

which  reflect  into  the  past  an  ideal  which  men  carry 
about  with  them  for  the  present.  Again,  it  may  be 
compared  with  beliefs  in  a  future  millennium.  It  is 
based  upon  a  very  important  fact,  that  every  civilized 
community,  perhaps  any  real  community,  requires,  in 
order  that  it  may  exist  at  all,  a  mutual  recognition  of 
rights  on  the  part  of  its  members,  which  is  a  tacit 
contract.  It  becomes  unhistorical  if  one  goes  on  to  say 
that  at  a  certain  period  in  the  world's  history  people 
met  together  and  said,  Let  us  come  to  an  understanding, 
and  make  a  society  on  the  basis  of  contract.  This  has 
never  taken  place,  but  the  potency  of  the  idea  lies  not 
in  the  fictitious  historical  account  it  gives  of  the  matter, 
but  in  the  real  present  truth  which  it  expresses. 

As  has  been  remarked,  this  idea  has  been  used  in  the 
most  diverse  interests.  It  was  applied  by  Hobbes  to 
justify  absolute  monarchy,  and  by  Rousseau  to  prove  the 
absolute  authority  of  the  will  of  the  people.  It  is  easy 
to  see  how  it  lends  itself  to  such  opposite  applications. 
On  the  one  hand  it  may  be  said,  Members  of  a  civilized 
community  have  contracted  themselves  out  of  certain 
original  rights,  and  the  existence  of  the  community 
depends  on  the  maintenance  of  that  contract ;  therefore 
a  strong  government,  or  at  any  rate  the  maintenance  of 
some  government,  is  necessary,  and  nothing  can  be 
allowed  to  violate  existing  law.  On  the  other  hand  it 
may  equally  well  be  said,  The  present  government  depends 
only  on  tacit  contract,  and  the  people  who  entered  into 
this  contract  are  at  liberty  to  dissolve  it  whenever  they 
think  fit.  As  Glaucon  here  applies  it,  the  theory  is  used 
destructively  and  in  a  revolutionary  interest,  to  show  that 
justice  is  a  matter  of  contract  and  convention  only ;  and 
there  is  further  a  most    important  implication  that  all 


54  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

convention,  and  therefore  all  law,  is  a  sort  of  artificial 
violence  done  to  human  nature. 

The  antithesis  of  nature  (Qvo-is)  and  law  or  convention x 
(rd/xo?),  which  thus  lies  at  the  root  of  Glaucon's  argument, 
is  one  which  was  widely  current  in  Plato's  time2.  Like 
many  other  antitheses,  it  has  different  meanings  in 
different  people's  mouths,  and  it  generally  owes  its 
effectiveness  to  the  fact  of  having  no  definite  meaning 
but  confusing  different  views.  We  first  hear  of  it  in  the 
history  of  philosophy  as  applied  to  physical  nature. 
Democritus  distinguished  the  real  constitution  of  the 
physical  world  from  those  secondary  qualities  which 
plainly  are  relative  to  human  sensation  ('hot'  and 
'  cold,'  '  sweet '  and  '  bitter,'  and  the  like),  saying  that 
the  former  existed  (pvaeL  and  the  latter  z>o/ma>.  And  in 
the  various  uses  of  the  antithesis  we  can  generally  trace 
a  contrast  between  that  which  is  radical  and  underived 
and  that  which  is  acquired,  or  between  that  which  is 
permanent  and  universal  and  that  which  changes  with 
circumstances.  But  no  word  is  more  ambiguous  than 
nature  ;  and  in  applying  the  formula  to  human  action 
and  feeling,  some  theorists  have  held  that  what  is 
'  natural '  in  man  is  what  he  has  most  in  common  with 
the  rest  of  the  animal  world  ;  some,  at  the  opposite 
extreme,  think  (as  Plato  and  Aristotle  emphatically  did) 
that  human  nature  is  properly  that  in  man  which  most 
distinguishes  him  from  the  rest  of  the  animal  world,  the 
'  differentia  '  of  man,  not  his  '  genus.' 

In  one  sense  everything  that  man  docs  is  natural  to 
him,  law,  morality,  science,  as   much  as  anything  else ; 

1  The  word  j^/ios  combines  the  senses  of  'law'  and  '  convention.' 

2  Cf.  Gorgias,  482  B  sqq.,  492  A-C,  Tlieact.  172  it,  Laws,  X.  888  E  to 
890  a.     Cf.  also  Aristotle,  Eth.  Ntc.  I.  iii.  2  and  V.  vii.  2. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       55 

his  nature  is  all  that  he  does.  When  this  antithesis 
between  law  and  nature  is  made,  the  antithesis  is,  so  to 
say,  within  man.  What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  re- 
membering all  the  time  that  we  are  within  human 
nature,  is  the  ground  upon  which  certain  products  of 
human  nature  are  distinguished  as  natural,  and  others 
as  conventional  ?  In  the  antithesis  as  it  is  here  used 
'  conventional '  appears  to  stand  for  that  which  depends 
for  its  existence  upon  certain  mutual  understandings 
which  society  necessarily  employs.  Now,  to  speak  of 
these  as  conventional  is  to  recognize  the  truth  that  the 
existence  of  society  does  in  the  last  resort  depend  on 
a  mutual  understanding ;  all  the  institutions  of  the  state 
and  of  society  are  forms  of  mutual  understanding,  and, 
as  they  are  emphatically  creations  of  man,  there  is  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  dispense  with  them  if  he 
wished.  If  the  theory  of  contract  is  understood  in  this 
sense,  it  is  not  profitable  to  dismiss  it  by  saying  it  is 
unhistorical.  That  does  not  invalidate  the  fact,  for  it 
is  a  fact,  that  society  is  based  upon  contract.  And  we 
may  go  on  to  say  with  equal  truth  that  the  existence  of 
society  implies  that  the  individual  members  of  it  agree 
to  sacrifice  a  part  of  their  individuality,  or  to  sacrifice 
a  part  of  their  rights,  if  we  call  what  a  man  can  do 
his  rights.  Two  people  cannot  live  and  work  together 
without  surrendering  something  which  they  would  do  if 
separate,  for  joint  action  is  not  the  same  as  separate 
action.  But  is  there  any  point  in  representing  the  results 
of  this  mutual  understanding  not  only  as  conventional 
but  as  merely  conventional,  contrasting  them  with  some- 
thing natural  which  has  a  deeper  authority?  What  is 
this  something  natural  ?  What  would  man  be  naturally, 
in  this  sense  of  the   word  ?     The   only  answer   to  the 


56  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    'REPUBLIC 

question  is  that  he  would  be  himself  minus  everything 
that  he  is  by  convention,  and  that  means  minus  every- 
thing in  him  which  the  existence  of  society  implies. 
Such  a  '  natural '  man  does  not  exist,  but  that  is  the  way 
in  which  we  should  have  to  think  of  him. 

It  appears,  then,  that  while  we  may,  in  a  true  sense, 
describe  laws  and  institutions  as  '  conventional,'  it  does 
not  follow  that  they  are  therefore,  in  any  true  sense, 
contrary  to  'nature' ;  and  that  there  is  all  the  difference 
in  the  world  between  saying  that  the  institutions  of 
society  are  based  on  compact,  and  saying  that  therefore 
they  are  unnatural  or  merely  conventional.  How  is  it, 
then,  that  the  antithesis  between  natural  and  conventional 
is  so  common  and  has  such  a  strong  hold  on  us,  and  what 
do  we  mean  by  '  conventional '  when  we  use  the  word,  as 
we  commonly  do,  with  a  bad  signification  ?  When  we 
say  an  institution  or  custom  is  merely  conventional,  what 
we  really  mean  is  that  it  has  no  right  to  exist,  because 
it  has  ceased  to  have  the  use  which  it  once  had.  A  law 
which  has  ceased  to  have  any  justification  for  its 
existence  is  the  best  instance  of  what  people  have  in 
mind  when  they  employ  this  antithesis.  And  the  reason 
why  there  are  endless  debates  as  to  what  is  merely 
conventional  and  what  is  not,  is  simply  that  people 
have  very  different  ideas  as  to  when  the  real  occasion 
for  a  law  or  custom  or  institution  has  ceased  to  exist. 

While  then  Glaucon's  theory,  by  which  justice  is  set 
down  as  a  something  conventional  and  contrary  to 
nature,  contains  the  great  truth  that  laws  and  customs 
would  not  exist  but  for  a  mutual  understanding,  it 
ignores  the  significance  of  this  mutual  understanding.  For 
not  only  is  this  understanding  the  work  of  man,  it  is 
what  man  in  society  has  deliberately  judged  to  be  best. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       57 

How  has  this  deliberate  judgment  come  to  be  passed  ? 
If  it  were  true  that  to  commit  injustice  with  impunity 
is  the  real  nature  of  man,  there  would  have  been  no  force 
to  create  society.  The  strongest  motives  are  those  which 
impel  to  action ;  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  account 
for  the  existence  of  society  at  all,  if  injustice  had  a  special 
claim  to  be  called  the  natural  tendency  of  human  action. 

Glaucon,  in  the  second  place,  goes  on  to  contend  that,  359  b  to 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  justice  is  always  observed  unwillingly;  3  ° 
that  is  to  say,  that  morality,  public  and  private,  is  only 
maintained  by  force.  Here  again  a  very  real  and  im- 
portant fact  is  made  the  basis  of  a  very  false  theory.  The 
existence  of  society  does  imply  force,  which  is  exercised 
in  various  ways.  In  every  civilized  community  the 
established  order  of  things  is  ultimately  backed  by 
the  force  of  the  police  and  the  army.  There  are 
a  certain  number  of  people  who  can  only  be  kept  from 
injuring  society  by  force,  and  the  law  of  the  land  can 
only  exist  if  there  is  physical  force  in  the  background. 
But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  say  that  force  and  the 
fear  of  force,  in  that  sense  of  the  word,  is  what  main- 
tains morality  in  the  community ;  and  it  would  be  easy 
to  show  that,  if  the  morality  of  a  community  really 
depended  on  force  and  on  fear  in  the  usual  sense,  it 
could  not  possibly  continue  to  exist.  You  may,  however, 
use  '  force '  in  a  quite  general  sense  to  include  not  only 
the  police  and  army  but  the  force  of  public  opinion,  the 
force  of  principles,  ideas,  conscience,  and  so  on.  These 
agencies  are  rightly  called  forces.  They  make  themselves 
felt  in  very  different  ways  in  different  individual  cases  ; 
the  force  of  society  acts  on  a  criminal  by  physical 
compulsion,  and  acts  in  quite  a  different  way  on  a  well- 
conducted  citizen.     But  in  these  very  various  ways  there 


58  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

is  great  force  acting  upon  the  component  elements  of 
society ;  and  that  is  the  truth  at  the  basis  of  Glaucon's 
argument  here.  What  is  untrue  is  that  society,  in  obey- 
ing its  own  laws,  is  acting  against  its  own  will.  As  soon 
as  society  begins  to  obey  its  laws  unwillingly,  their 
abolition  is  only  a  question  of  time.  The  most  thorough- 
going despotism  in  the  world  never  existed  on  a  basis 
of  mere  force.  If  it  be  said  that  everybody  would  break 
the  laws  if  he  dared,  the  answer  is  that  if  that  were  true, 
everybody  would  dare ;  there  would  be  no  force  sufficient 
to  frighten  him  from  it.  This  does  not  in  the  least 
exclude  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  the  members 
of  society  do  obey  the  law  from  fear,  and  that  a  large 
number  do  not  obey  it  at  all. 
360  e  to  To  complete  his  theory  Glaucon,  in  the  third  place, 

undertakes  to  show  that  this  inward  protest  of  the 
members  of  society  against  the  supposed  compulsion 
exercised  by  law  is  a  natural  and  justifiable  feeling, 
because  the  advantages  of  life  are  all  on  the  side  of 
injustice.  There  is  no  impossibility,  he  argues,  in 
imagining  all  the  advantages  of  life  to  be  secured  by 
the  mere  appearance  of  justice  without  the  reality ; 
while  the  reality  of  justice  might  well  exist  without 
a  single  element  of  good  fortune.  This  supposition  is 
put  by  Glaucon  in  a  very  violent  way  in  order  to  press 
home  the  question,  If  there  is  such  a  possibility  as  this 
in  life,  in  what  does  the  real  advantage  of  justice 
consist?  It  may  be  said  that  what  he  describes  is  not 
altogether  possible ;  the  appearances  and  the  reality 
of  justice  cannot  be  kept  separate  throughout  every 
part  of  life  ;  the  consistently  unjust  man  must  some- 
where drop  the  appearance  of  justice,  and  the  man  who 
consistently    maintains    the    appearance    cannot    always 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       59 

escape  the  reality.  But  even  if  the  picture  is  overdrawn, 
it  brings  out  a  very  real  difficulty,  a  difficulty  which  we 
cannot  get  away  from  so  long  as  we  measure  the  ad- 
vantage of  moral  goodness  by  anything  other  than 
itself.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  is  so  ordered 
that  there  is  no  necessary  correspondence  between  moral 
good  and  the  material  elements  of  prosperity  ;  and  so 
long  as  people  expect  to  see  such  a  correspondence, 
so  long  as  they  regard  material  prosperity  as  the  proper 
result  of  goodness,  they  will  be  perpetually  liable  to 
have  their  theory  of  the  world  upset  by  facts. 

In  this  passage  and  in  several  others,  especially  in  the 
Gorgias1,  where  the  true  philosopher  is  represented  as 
standing  in  solitary  antagonism  to  the  world,  we  can 
distinctly  see  the  impression  which  the  death  of  Socrates 
left  on  Plato's  mind.  We  find  in  such  passages  some- 
thing approaching  to  the  contrast  between  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  the  kingdom  of  the  world,  with  which 
Christianity  has  made  us  so  familiar.  It  is  true  that 
in  the  New  Testament  the  antagonism  between  spiritual 
and  non-spiritual  powers  is  closely  associated,  though 
not  identified,  with  the  antagonism  between  the  poor 
and  the  rich,  while  of  this  latter  antagonism  there  is  no 
trace  in  Greek  philosophy.  But  the  idea  of  ranging  all 
the  powers  that  be,  and  all  the  external  goods  of  life, 
on  one  side,  and  the  naked  principle  of  right  on  the 
other,  is  the  same  in  Greek  philosophy  and  in  the  New 
Testament. 

We  now  pass  to  Adeimantus.     The  first  view  that  he  362  d  to 
represents  contradicts  expressly  that  which  is  represented  3  3 
by  Glaucon,  but  it  brings  out  more  clearly  the   same 
point  that  Glaucon  had  made,  namely  that  the  preachers 

1  See  especially  Gorgias,  521  v,  sqq. 


60  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of  morality  have  always  in  one  way  or  another  confused 
it  with  its  material  results,  though  immoral  consequences 
do  not  always  follow  from  this  teaching.  Glaucon  ends 
by  showing  that  it  is  quite  a  possible  supposition  that 
the  just  should  be  miserable  and  the  unjust  happy  ; 
Adeimantus'  first  position  may  be  briefly  stated  thus : 
justice  secures  happiness  ;  therefore  it  should  be  pursued. 
This,  he  says,  is  the  view  of  parents  and  of  teachers 
generally.  A  certain  prosperity,  separable  from  goodness 
itself,  is  alleged  to  be  the  natural  concomitant  of  good- 
ness. Such  a  view  is  a  natural  distortion  of  a  feeling  in 
human  nature  that  justice  should  have  its  reward.  There 
is  a  kind  of  instinctive  demand  in  the  human  mind  that 
there  should  be  some  reward  for  good  living,  that  life 
should  be  reasonable,  that  it  should  approve  itself  to 
us  as  just.  The  idea  that  God  blesses  the  just  man  is 
expressed  in  all  early  literature,  and  notably  in  the  Old 
Testament.  It  has  nothing  in  it  prejudicial  to  high 
morality,  till  in  later  times  the  principle  that  men  are 
in  some  way  better  for  virtue,  is  interpreted  to  mean 
that  good  men  have  a  right  to  material  prosperity,  and 
material  success  thus  comes  to  be  made  the  criterion  of 
goodness.  In  early  times  the  idea  is  merely  the  readiest 
way  of  expressing  belief  in  the  righteous  government  of 
the  world,  but  as  a  reasoned  theory  of  later  times  it  pro- 
vokes the  retort  that  good  men  do  not  always  prosper. 
The  ordinary  facts  of  life  arc  appealed  to  with  opposite 
motives.  '  Never  yet  saw  I  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor 
his  seed  begging  their  bread';  the  wicked  'have  children 
at  their  desire  and  leave  the  rest  of  their  substance  for 
their  babes';  each  of  these  is  an  appeal  to  experiences 
which  do  happen, and  the  one  appeal  provokes  the  other. 
People  who  seek  for  a  justification  of  their  moral  belief 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       61 

in  observations  of  this  kind,  and  are  distressed  if  they 
cannot  find  it,  commit  the  fallacy  of  resolving  what  is 
good  in  one  sense  into  what  is  good  in  another ;  they 
start  with  a  wrong  expectation  as  to  the  consequences 
of  morality.  If  a  man  complains  that  goodness  often 
does  not  bring  prosperity,  there  is  an  obvious  reply : 
If  you  believe  that  what  you  understand  by  prosperity 
is  the  real  motive  and  end  of  life,  then  live  for  it ;  if 
you  do  not,  then  why  expect  that  it  should  have  any 
connexion  with  morality  ? 

This  general  idea  of  morality  as  connected  with 
reward  is  extended  by  Adeimantus  into  a  future  life. 
The  Eleusinian  Mysteries  have,  he  says,  been  agencies 
in  increasing  the  expectation  of  reward  in  a  future  life 
for  goodness  in  this  life,  and — for  this  is  the  point  of  the 
passage — this  expectation  of  reward  is  made  the  motive 
of  a  good  life.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  say- 
ing that  the  soul  is  immortal  and  that  it  is  better  for  it 
always  to  be  good,  which  is  the  burden  of  the  Republic, 
and  saying  that  certain  moral  actions  should  be  done 
for  the  sake  of  obtaining  certain  other  desirable  things. 

The  second  view  to  which  Adeimantus  gives  utterance  363  e  to 
is  the  natural  counterpart  of  the  first.  It  is  one  that  is  3  5A' 
in  vogue  in  private  conversation,  but  poets  and  prose- 
writers  may  also  be  found  expressing  it.  It  dwells  on 
the  hardship  and  troublesomeness  of  the  path  of  justice, 
and  on  the  readiness  of  the  gods  to  prosper  the  wicked 
and  neglect  the  good.  What  the  poets  sometimes  say 
of  the  indifference  of  the  gods  to  justice  in  this  life 
is  reinforced  by  prophets  and  dealers  in  Mysteries. 
These  teach  expressly  that  sacrifices  and  prayers  and 
ceremonies  of  initiation  win  the  favour  of  the  gods,  for 
this   life   and   the   next,  better  than  justice  does.     The 


62     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

complaint  of  the  poets  and  the  teaching  of  these 
prophets  follow  naturally  from  the  tendency  to  identify 
goodness  with  material  prosperity,  or  to  make  material 
prosperity  the  criterion  of  real  success  in  life.  There 
are  abundant  expressions  in  Greek  literature  of  this 
belief  in  the  injustice  of  Providence1. 

In  the  references  which  Adeimantus  makes  to  the 
Mysteries  there  are  two  kinds  of  Mysteries  to  be  dis- 
tinguished. We  are  told  first  (363  c)  that  Musaeus  and 
his  son  Eumolpus  teach  men  to  expect  rewards  and 
punishments  of  a  gross  sort  in  a  future  life.  This  must 
refer  to  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  which  were  supposed 
to  have  been  founded  by  Eumolpus.  The  complaint 
Adeimantus  makes  of  them  is  simply  that  they  en- 
couraged a  belief  in  rewards  and  punishments  which 
tended  to  weaken  belief  in  the  intrinsic  worth  of  moral 
goodness.  Further  on  (364  B  to  365  a)  he  speaks  no 
longer  of  the  state-recognized  Mysteries,  but  of  private 
mystery- mongers,  who  were  not  regular  priests  attached 
to  particular  places  or  perhaps  to  particular  gods,  but 
men  who  wandered  about  the  country,  professing  to  be 
able  by  spells  and  invocations  to  exercise  an  influence  on 
the  gods  and  to  obtain  dispensations  for  sin.  The  Mys- 
teries they  conducted  were  associated  with  the  names 
of  heroes,  generally  with  that  of  Orpheus.  Against  them 
Adeimantus  has  a  further  complaint  ;  they  encouraged 
the  idea  that  the  consequences  of  crime  could  be  averted 
by  some  trifling  payment  or  sacrifice'-. 

Both  these  kinds  of  rites  were  known  as  fiva-njpia  or 
re'Arj.     The    former    word    signifies    that    they    involved 

1  Cf.    Eurip.    Elcctra,  583    and    It.    293  ;    Thcognis  (BcrglO,  373  sq., 
with  743  sq.  and  elsewhere  ;  and  the  Melian  dialogue  in  Thucydidi  s. 
'  See  Laws,  X.  909  A  sqq.  and  XI.  93:2  B  sq. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       63 

secrecy1,  and  were  confined  to  initiated  persons.  The 
practice  of  excluding  certain  classes  of  persons  from 
religious  rites  was  originally  widespread,  and  not  con- 
fined to  what  were  expressly  called  '  Mysteries.'  Most 
of  the  gods  appear  at  some  time  to  have  had  some  sort 
of  Mysteries  connected  with  their  worship.  The  word 
re'Arj  is  sometimes  thought  to  refer  to  the  payment  that 
had  to  be  made  at  the  time  of  initiation,  but  it  came  at 
last  to  bear  a  reference  to  a  sort  of  religious  perfection 
or  consummation2.  These  rites  have  left  their  stamp 
upon  language  in  the  words,  bearing  now  a  much  wider 
sense,  '  mystery  '  and  '  initiation.' 

It  is  generally  agreed  now  that  there  was  no  preach- 
ing or  teaching  connected  with  the  Mysteries.  The 
Eleusinian  Mysteries  were  religious  pageants,  in  which 
Demeter  and  Dionysus  formed  the  principal  subjects 
for  representation.  The  two  main  ideas  which  these 
pageants  expressed  were  that  of  the  earth  as  the  place 
of  the  dead,  and  that  of  the  earth  as  the  womb  of  life. 
These  were  symbolized  by  Demeter  looking  for  her 
lost  daughter  Persephone,  and  by  Persephone's  return. 
Like  all  symbolism,  this  depended  very  much  upon  the 
mind  of  the  worshipper  for  the  interpretation  put  upon 
it.  In  Greek  literature  we  find  evidence  both  of  very 
gross  and  of  very  exalted  views  of  the  Eleusinian  Mys- 
teries. The  idea  which  attached  to  them,  that  the  future 
of  the  soul  was  to  dwell  for  ever  with  God,  was  an 
exalted  idea,  but  it  was  capable,  of  course,  of  perversion  ; 
a  passage  in  Sophocles  which  expresses  it  is  said  to 
have  provoked  Diogenes  to  the  question  whether  an 
initiated  thief  was  really  to  be  better  off  in  the  other 

1  fivtiv  to  shut  the  lips. 

2  Tt\ei<r0at  meaning  both  '  to  be  perfected  '  and  '  to  be  initiated.' 


64     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

world  than  a  hero  like  Epaminondas1.  Like  the  Eleu- 
sinian,  the  Orphic  Mysteries  clearly  had  their  higher  and 
their  lower  side,  the  higher  interpretation  of  them  ex- 
pressing the  idea  that  the  life  of  the  soul  was  unending, 
and  that  it  expiated  in  one  stage  of  existence  any  crimes 
it  had  committed  in  a  previous  stage. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
Mysteries  in  inculcating  the  belief  in  one  God  and  the 
belief  in  a  future  state.  There  is  really  no  ground  for 
supposing  that  they  had  anything  to  do  with  the  former 
belief,  but  with  the  latter  they  had  a  good  deal  to  do. 
They  both  recognized  it  and  gave  a  solemn  and  magnifi- 
cent expression  to  it ;  and,  though  there  is  no  evidence 
that  there  was  direct  teaching  or  preaching,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  Mysteries  did  contribute  to  intensify  and 
diffuse  brighter  views  about  the  future  of  the  soul  than 
had  been  held  in  the  early  times  of  Greece.  It  has 
often  been  noticed  that  the  expectation  of  rewards  after 
death  for  good  done  in  the  body  is  a  late  idea  ;  the  idea 
of  future  punishment  appeared  earlier  and  took  more 
hold  on  the  Greek  mind.  In  Homer  the  life  after  death 
has  very  little  place  ;  it  is  at  most  a  negative,  bloodless 
sort  of  existence2.  As  men  began  to  think  more  about 
the  good  and  evil  in  life,  and  as  their  views  on  the 
subject  became  deeper,  the  fate  of  the  soul  for  good  or 
evil  not  only  in  life  but  after  death  became  a  subject  for 

1  See  Plutarch,  Mora/ia,  p.  21  F,  where  Soph.  Fr.  719  (Dindorf)  occurs. 
Other  passages  showing  the  higher  view  of  the  IVtystcrics  (Elcusinian 
or  Orphic)  are  Pindar,  Fr.  137  (Bcrgk  ,  the  Homeric  Hymn  /<>  DemtUr, 
478  sq.,  and  Isocrates,  Pawg.  28  ;  also  in  Plato  himself,  Cm/.  400  C, 
Phacdo.  62  is  and  69  c,  and  Laivs,  IX.  870  D.  Examples  of  the  grosser 
view  may  be  found  in  Aristophanes.  Fiogs,  146  to  163,  and  Peace,  374-5. 

'-'  Til"-  Kleventli  Monk  1  I  tin-  Odyssiy.  where  Odysseus  visits  the  spirits 
of  the  depart-  d,  is  generally  supposed  to  be  later  than  the  rest. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM       65 

consideration  ;  the  interest  taken  in  the  idea  of  a  future 
life  was  an  extension  of  growing  thoughtfulness  about 
this  life.  In  Aeschylus,  as  in  Pindar,  we  find  the  idea 
of  punishment  for  sin  after  death,  but  the  strong  belief 
in  future  rewards  which  we  find  expressed  in  Pindar 
is  peculiar  to  him  among  the  older  poets.  All  the 
comfortable  ideas  about  death  and  the  future  life  which 
grew  up  in  a  later  time,  seem  to  have  received  expres- 
sion in  the  Eleusinian,  and  still  more  in  the  Orphic, 
Mysteries. 

In  the  concluding  part  of  his  speech  Adeimantus  365  a  to 
sums  up  what  is  common  to  the  views  which  he  and  3  7 
Glaucon  have  put  forward.  They  all  depend  upon  the 
one  belief  that  justice  and  injustice  are  to  be  sought 
or  avoided,  not  for  their  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of 
something  else.  He  proceeds  to  put  in  a  vivid  way  the 
difficulty  in  which  men  like  himself  and  Glaucon  find 
themselves.  They  see  the  whole  of  public  opinion  arrayed 
upon  the  side  of  this  belief ;  and,  further,  the  burden  of 
most  that  they  hear  is  that  with  skill  and  by  proper 
devices  we  may  commit  injustice,  without  forfeiting  the 
material  rewards  of  justice.  As  for  the  gods,  either 
there  are  none  at  all,  or,  if  there  are,  we  only  know 
of  them  through  the  poets,  and  these  poets  all  represent 
them  as  open  to  corruption.  In  the  face  of  this  almost 
irresistible  mass  of  public  opinion  what  is  there  to  keep 
a  man  from  injustice  except  weakness  and  want  of  spirit? 
He  can  only  be  saved  from  it  in  two  ways — by  some 
divine  grace  or  inspiration  which  gives  him  an  instinctive 
repulsion  from  injustice  1S  or  by  his  somehow  coming  to 

1  Plato  is  fond  of  using  the  phrases  Otia  <pvots  and  Bt'ia  fioipa  or  Otia 
TVXV,  to  express  the  idea  of  some  unaccountable  influence  to  which  it  is 
due  that  justice  does  not  perish  out  of  the  world  entirely.     Cf.  368  A  and 

VOL.  II.  F 


66     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

understand  its  nature  better  than  it  is  generally  under- 
stood now. 

The  cause  of  this  difficulty  is  that  no  one  has  yet  ade- 
quately explained  what  are  the  intrinsic  good  and  evil 
which  justice  and  injustice,  whether  seen  or  unseen,  have 
in  them.  This  is  what  Socrates  is  now  called  upon  to 
explain,  dismissing  for  the  present  all  consideration  of 
the  results  to  which  justice  and  injustice  lead  through  the 
impression  they  produce  on  others  (ho£a)  K 

This  brings  us  to  the  end  of  the  introductory  part 
of  the  Republic ;  the  constructive  part  of  the  work  now 
begins. 

VI.  492  a.  This  is  also  elsewhere  contrasted  with  emoTr/fir],  reasoned 
conviction  or  knowledge. 

1  8o£a  means  either  what  seems  to  me  or  what  seems  to  others  about 
me,  the  impression  I  receive  or  the  impression  I  make.  Here  of  course 
it  is  the  latter. 


IV.    THE  MAIN  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIETY 

AND  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 

INDICATED 

[Republic,  II.  367  E  to  376  E.] 

The  problem,  which  has  been  put  before  Socrates 
and  reiterated  again  and  again,  is  to  show  what  is  the 
effect  of  justice  or  injustice  on  the  soul  of  the  man  that 
has  it,  or,,  as  we  should  rather  say,  on  the  life  of  the  man, 
and  especially  on  his  inner  life.  There  seems  at  first 
sight  scarcely  any  connexion  between  this  question  and 
the  answer  that  he  proceeds  to  give  to  it.  For  he  begins 
by  passing  suddenly  to  the  subject  of  the  genesis  of 
society.  To  understand  the  import  of  this  transition  is 
to  understand  the  principle  of  the  whole  argument  of 
the  Republic. 

To  explain  the  method  of  his  answer  Socrates  tells  us  367  E  t<> 
that  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  show  the  effect  of  justice 
in  the  inner  life  of  the  individual  man,  and  that  it  will 
be  best  not  to  begin  by  an  analysis  of  the  soul  but  by 
looking  at  human  nature  where  it  can  be  seen  on  a  large 
scale — '  in  large  letters,'  as  he  puts  it — in  the  broad 
outlines  of  the  state  and  of  society.     Beginning  with  the 

F  2 


68     LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

outside  of  human  nature  where  it  is  easy  to  read,  we  are 
afterwards  to  try  and  read  it  on  the  inside  with  these 
'  large  letters '  in  our  mind.     In  other  words,  his  method 
is  to  analyze  facts  about  human  nature  which   are   ap- 
parent to  everybody,  and  to  examine  the  significance  of 
those  facts  till  he  arrives  eventually  at  the  inmost  prin- 
ciple of  human  nature  of  which  they  are  the  expression. 
The  whole   Republic   is  really  an  attempt  to  interpret > 
human  nature  psychologically;  the  postulate  upon  which/ 
its  method   rests  is  that  all  the  institutions  of  society,  3 
class    organization,    law,    religion,    art,    and    so    on,    are 
ultimately  products  of  the  human_soul,  an  inner  principle 
of  life  which  works  itself  out  in  these  outward  shapes. 

Plato's  position  is  sometimes  described  by  saying  he 
assumes  that  there  is  an  analogy  between  the  individual 
and  the  state,  and  that  the  life  of  the  individual  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  life  of  the  state ;  but  this  is  not  an 
adequate  description  of  it.  His  position  is  that  the  life 
of  the  state  is  the  life  of  the  men  composing  it,  as 
manifested  in  a  way  comparatively  easy  to  observe. 
Later  on,  when  he  speaks  of  the  justice  or  courage  of  the 
state,  he  means  the  justice  or  courage  of  the  citizens  as 
shown  in  their  public  capacity.  The  'justice  of  the 
state,'  then,  is  the  justice  of  the  individuals  who  compose 
it.  This  docs  not  mean  that  justice  in  a  state  manifests 
itself  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  justice  in  a  private 
individual,  but  simply  that,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
justice,  its  essential  nature  is  the  same,  however  and 
wherever  it  manifests  itself,  whether  in  a  man's  private 
life  or  in  his  public  relations.  It  is  true  that  the  virtue 
of  the  state  is  a  larger  thing  than  the  virtue  of  individuals  ; 
a  nation  is  brave  when  its  army  is  brave,  and  the  army 
is  a  greater  and  more  conspicuous  thing  than  a  single 


ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIETY  AND  HUMAN  NATURE     69 

person  ;  but  the  courage  of  the  state  as  shown  in  its 
army  is  the  manifestation,  in  the  public  action  of  certain 
men,  of  the  same  principle  that  makes  men  brave  in  all 
the  relations  of  business  or  of  private  life.  We  must 
bear  in  mind  throughout  Plato's  argument  that  there  is 
no  state  apart  from  the  individual  men  and  women  who 
compose  it. 

We  have  now  to  notice  a  second  feature  in  Plato's  369  a  to 
method  ;  the  state  is  to  be  looked  at  in  its  origin  and  37  E' 
growth.  The  phrase,  'origin  of  society,'  suggests  to  us 
at  first  the  most  elementary  state  of  society  historically 
discoverable ;  but  we  must  put  that  idea  aside,  for  that 
is  not  what  interests  Plato  here.  He  is  not  concerned 
with  an  historical  enquiry,  such  as  how  Athens  came  to 
be  what  she  was,  but  with  this  question :  Given  the  fact 
of  society  as  it  is,  what  are  the  conditions  which  its 
existence  implies,  what  is  it  in  human  nature  which 
makes  society  exist  ?  The  question  is  not  by  what  stages 
society  has  grown  up,  but  how  it  is  that  it  exists  at  all. 
We  gather,  though  he  does  not  tell  us,  that  in  what 
follows  he  pursues  not  the  historical  order  of  development 
but  the  logical  order.  That  is  to  say,  he  takes  society 
roughly  as  it  is  and  begins  at  what  seems  its  lowest 
point,  at  that  aspect  of  society  in  which  it  is  an  organiza- 
tion for  the  satisfaction  of  certain  physical  wants.  This 
may  be  called  the  lowest  psychological  basis  of  society  ; 
for  if  man  had  only  these  wants  he  would  be  a  fragment 
of  what  he  actually  is.  Beginning  then  with  this,  Plato 
asks,  regarding  man  as  a  creature  of  these  wants,  what 
there  is  in  him  to  produce  society.  As  he  goes  on  he 
brings  in  gradually  the  higher  elements  of  human  nature, 
until  he  has  made  the  picture  of  society  complete  in  its 
■main  outlines ;  and  at  each  stage  he  asks  what,  if  any, 


7o     LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

seems  to  be  the  principle  of  the  good  life  of  society  at 
that  stage.  By  the  end  of  the  first  section  of  his  argu- 
ment (376  E)  the  main  constituent  elements  which  go  to 
make  up  human  life  have  been  put  before  us.  Given 
these,  we  proceed  to  consider  the  development  and 
education  of  them. 

We  should  have  a  modern  parallel  to  this  method  if 
a  sociologist,  taking  England  as  it  is,  were  to  set  out 
from  the  idea  that,  since  life  would  not  go  on  at  all  if  its 
necessaries  were  not  provided,  the  life  of  England  rests 
ultimately  on  its  industrial  organization,  and  were  to 
proceed  to  ask  whether  there  was  any  principle  of  good 
and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  discoverable  in  this  industrial 
organization.  But  Plato  has  embarrassed  us  by  the  form 
of  his  enquiry.  Instead  of  putting  the  question  in  an 
abstract  way,  he  has  put  it  in  a  picturesque  way,  asking 
us  to  imagine  a  society  of  human  beings  engaged  merely 
in  the  most  obviously  useful  industrial  occupations.  Thus 
he  appears  to  be  describing  an  actual  historical  beginning, 
and  as  a  description  of  this,  the  picture  he  draws  is  open 
to  obvious  criticisms ;  for  instance,  both  builders  and 
shoemakers  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  really  primitive 
society.  Of  course  the  substance  of  the  picture  is  taken 
direct  from  Plato's  own  time.  We  may  call  it  a  logical 
picture  of  the  origin  of  society  in  this  sense,  that  it 
illustrates  what  the  existence  and  maintenance  of  society 
demands,  and  how  those  various  demands  can  best  be 
satisfied,  taking  those  demands  in  a  certain  logical  order. 
First  then  (369 13  to  372  i>)  Plato  sketches,  in  mere 
outline,  the  elementary  conditions  of  society  so  far  as  it 
exists  for  the  production  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  His 
tate  is  to  be  one  whose  function  is  to  satisfy  necessary 
wants  alone  (avayKaioTUTi]  770'Atv),  as   distinguished    from 


ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIETY  AND  HUMAN  NATURE     71 

the  unnecessary  appetites  which  the  luxurious  state 
(rpvcpcoaa  7T0A1?)  aims  at  satisfying  in  addition.  In  this 
sketch  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Republic,  which 
constantly  recur  later  in  a  developed  form,  are  clearly 
seen.  What  is_  the  general  principle  whLciL^produces 
human  society?  It  is  ,w_ant  in  various  forms.  Society 
depends  upon  a  double  fact:  the  fact  that  no  man  is 
sufficient  for  himself  (avTapn-qs;),  and  the  complementary 
fact  that  other  men  want  him.  While  every  man  is 
insufficient  for  himself,  every  man  has  it  in  him  to  give 
to  others  what  they  have  not  got.  This  is  what  we  may 
call  the  principle  of  reciprocity ;  the  limitation  of  the 
individual  goes  along  with  the  fact  that  he  supplements 
the  limitations  of  others.  Throughout  the  Republic  this 
conception  is  adhered  to.  The  whole  growth  of  society 
is  one  great  organization,  resting  upon  this  principle,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  various  human  wants. 

This  passage  looks  at  first  sight  like  an  elementary 
treatise  on  political  economy,  but  the  principle  which  is 
here  put  before  us  in  its  economic  form  is  not  to  Plato 
an  economic  principle  ;  what  economists  call  the  principle 
of  the  division  of  labour  is  to  him  a  moral  principle. 
Nevertheless  his  first  illustration  of  it  is  taken  from 
productive  labour.  What,  he  asks,  are  the  conditions 
under  which  production  will  be  most  successful  ?  Pro- 
duction will  be  largest,  easiest,  and  best  if  the  producer 
confines  himself  to  one  special  work,  does  his  own  work 
as  well  as  he  can,  and  shares  the  results  with  others. 
Nature  has  pointed  out  this  principle  ;  for  no  two  men 
have  been  made  exactly  the  same.  The  very  fact  of 
individuality  organizes  men  for  the  community;  each 
man  wants  others  and  can  contribute  something  to  them. 

This  principle  results  in  the  gradual  growth  of  industrial 


72  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

society  through  the  specialization  of  productive  functions. 
Accordingly  we  find  pastoral  industry,  agricultural  in- 
dustry, and  mechanical  industries  of  various  sorts,  practised 
by  distinct  classes  of  producers.  Next  we  notice,  arising 
from  the  same  cause,  the  phenomena  of  retail  trade  and 
of  currency ;  and  along  with  these  an  export  and  an 
import  trade,  which  are  the  application  of  the  same 
principle  to  the  state  in  its  relations  with  other  states. 
These  are  the  main  constituents  of  an  industrial  com- 
munity, or  a  community  regarded  as  an  organization  for 
producing  the  necessaries  of  life.  Where  in  all  this,  asks 
Socrates,  is  justice  to  be  found  ?  Probably,  Adeimantus 
answers,  somewhere  in  the  mutual  needs  of  these  people 

(37  ie)- 

But  the  answer  thus  suggested  is  not  developed  till 
we  have  gone  a  great  deal  further  with  the  organization 
of  society.  The  mention  of  justice  leads  to  the  question, 
how  would  a  community  such  as  we  have  described  live, 
confined  as  it  is  to  the  normal  and  healthy  satisfaction  of 
elementary  wants  ?  Socrates  here  describes  a  people  living 
a  life  of  animal  simplicity.  Their  life  would  be  little 
better,  says  Glaucon,  than  that  of  a  city  of  pigs.  Human 
society  cannot  stop  at  this  elementary  point,  in  a  con- 
dition of  idyllic  innocence  in  which  merely  these  bare 
wants  are  satisfied  ;  for  this  life  of  ideal  simplicity  devoid 
of  progress  (like  the  life  of  the  South  Sea  Islanders 
imagined  in  Tennyson's  Lockslcy  Hall)  excludes  the 
greater  part  of  the  elements  which  make  up  human  life 
as  we  know  it ;  it  exeludes  civilization. 

Plato  therefore  proceeds  to  sketch  brief!)'  the  elements 
uf  ci\  ili/.atiun,  in  .1  description  <>l  the  luxurious  state 
(372  D  to  373  Jl).  lie  describes  the  growth  of  social 
refinement,  of  luxury,  and  the    material   appliances  of 


ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIETY  AND  HUMAN  NATURE     73 

life  ;  the  growth  also,  as  accessories  to  this  development, 
of  the  fine  arts,  the  decorative  arts  and  poetry ;  and,  further, 
the  complication  of  the  conditions  of  health  and  the 
consequent  growth  of  medicine.  In  this  expansion  of 
human  nature  we  have  seen  added  to  the  necessary 
wants  of  man  further  wants,  capable  of  leading  to  his 
highest  development,  capable,  at  the  same  time,  of 
leading  to  all  sorts  of  extravagance  and  evil.  We 
have  also,  as  we  shall  find,  got  additional  elements  in 
human  nature  to  consider.  The  state  as  first  described 
exhibited  the  working  of  that  element  which  Plato  calls 
'  appetite,'  that  which  seeks  the  satisfaction  of  material 
wants  ;  in  the  more  developed  state  we  shall  see,  dis- 
tinguished from  this,  what  he  calls  the  element  of '  spirit ' 
and  what  he  calls  the  '  philosophic '  element.  These  two 
elements  in  human  nature  afterwards  appear  to  be  the 
causes  of  the  growth  in  civilization  here  pictured.  Plato's 
conception  of  these  two  elements  in  man  is  only  gradually 
put  before  us. 

The  other  side  to  the  development  of  material 
comfort  is,  we  are  told,  the  rise  of  war  (373  E),  for 
the  expansion  of  human  wants  beyond  bare  necessity 
brings  with  it  the  desire  of  aggression.  Plato,  however, 
passes  immediately  from  aggression,  which  is  the  origin 
of  war,  to  defence,  which  is  its  justification.  The  function 
of  the  military  organization  of  the  state,  which  he  now 
at  once  proceeds  to  consider,  is  to  protect  the  state  against 
aggression  and  to  assist  in  maintaining  internal  order  ;  for 
conquest  is  nowhere  recognized  by  Plato  as  the  true  end 
for  which  the  state  should  be  organized  l.  Having  now 
brought  to  our  notice  the  necessity  for  armed  force  in  the 
state,  he  has  put  before  us  the  natural  elements  which  go  to 

1  Cf.  Aristotle,  Pol.  1333  b,  5  sq. 


74     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

make  up  the  life  of  human  society  as  it  is.     He  has  done 
so  without  distinguishing  the  good  and  the  bad  in  them. 

In  the  defence  of  the  community  we  have  clearly 
a  social  function  of  vital  importance,  and  the  principle 
of  the  specialization  of  functions  will  therefore  apply 
still  more  rigidly  here.  If,  as  we  have  seen,  nature 
has  .specially  adapted  people  for  particular  kinds  of 
work,  and  if  it  is  important  for  the  production  of  com- 
modities to  get  the  right  nature  for  the  right  work,  much 
more  will  it  be  important  for  the  purpose  of  guarding 
the  state.  This  leads  Socrates  to  take  up,  as  the 
foremost  problem  that  concerns  the  organization  of 
the  state,  the  question  what  sort  of  nature  will  make 
what  he  calls  a  good  ;  Guardian '  of  the  state.  Clearly 
it  must  be  a  nature  good  for  fighting,  a  nature  possessed 
of '  spirit '  (6vij.6$  or  to  Ovixoetbis),  the  fighting  element  in 
human  nature  (375  a).  This  is  not  merely  the  instinct  of 
aggression,  but  rather  that  which  prompts  to  resistance  ; 
it  is  described  as  something  '  unconquerable,'  which  makes 
a  man  in  all  things  fearless  and  not  to  be  beaten.  But  the 
Guardians  must  also  possess  in  a  high  degree  an  element 
complementary  to  this  ;  for  if  we  imagine  men  entirely  con- 
sisting of '  spirit '  such  men  would  simply  tear  one  another 
in  pieces;  a  society  composed  of  them  could  not  exist. 
The  complementary  clement,  which  is  wanted  in  the 
Guardians,  is  an  clement  of  attraction  instead  of  repul- 
sion. This  is  what  Plato  (375  E  sq.)  calls  the  'philoso- 
phic clement'  (to  <f>ih6o-o<j>ov).  There  is  even  in  the  lower 
animals  something  which  chaws  them  to  what  they 
know  and  arc  familiar  with,  and  this  is  an  elementary 
form  of  the  'philosophic  element'  in  man,  which  is 
something  in  man's  nature  in  virtue  of  which  he  is  at- 
tracted to  whatever  he  recognizes  as  akin  to  him.      It 


ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIETY  AND  HUMAN  NATURE     75 

may  be  an  attraction  to  human  beings,  friends,  relations 
or  fellows,  or  it  may  be  not  to  human  beings  but  to  other 
objects,  either  beautiful  things  in  nature  or  art,  or  truth 
in  science  or  philosophy.  Plato  never  abandons  this  way 
of  looking  at  human  affection  and  at  human  reason. 
Philosophy  in  man  is  that  which  draws  him_to_what  he 
recognizes,  as  the  dog  instinctively  feels  at  home  with 
those  whom  he  knows.  Familiarity,  to  put  it  abstractly, 
is  the  basis  of  affection.  The  real  meaning  of  this  passage 
where  the  dog  is  discovered  to  be  philosophic  because  it 
likes  those  it  knows,  comes  out  as  we  read  the  rest  of  the 
book.  It  is,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  Plato,  an  anticipa- 
tion of  what  he  says  more  intelligibly  later  on.  In  Book 
III  he  speaks  of  the  love  of  beauty  as  a  sort  of  recogni- 
tion by  the  soul  of  what  is  akin  to  it  la  the  world  about 
it ;  the  soul  welcomes  (do-7rd£erou)  what  is  beautiful  from 
a  sense  of  kinship.  In  Book  VI  the  desire  of  knowledge 
and  truth  is  represented  as  the  desire  of  the  soul  to  unite 
itself  to  what  is  akin  to  it  in  the  world.  Not  to  go  further 
into  these  two  passages,  the  point  common  to  them  and 
to  the  present  passage  is  that  the  element  of  the  soul 
which  Plato  calls  t!ie_philjQsophic,  isdescribed  as  con- 
sistinjrjn_j.^eehjig^of  attraction  to  something  other  than 
oneself  and  yet  akin_to__oneself. 

From  the  manner  in  which  these  two  last  elements 
in  human  nature  are  brought  in,  Plato  might  be  thought 
to  be  describing  some  special  form  of  human  nature 
exhibited  only  in  exceptional  persons ;  but  we  find  as  we 
go  on  that  he  is  really  describing  what  he  takes  to  be 
normal  human  nature,  and  that  every  man  must  have 
in  him  something  of  each  of  the  three  elements,  the 
element  of  appetite,  the  element  of  spirit,  and  the  philo- 
sophic element. 


76  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

Thus  we  have  given  us  the  main  elements  of  society 
without  which  human  life  as  it  is  could  not  go  on.  It 
could  not  go  on  unless  animal  wants  were  satisfied, 
unless  men  could  protect  themselves,  and  unless  men 
were  somehow  drawn  to  one  another.  The  two  higher 
elements  in  human  nature  are  here  deduced  from  these 
requirements  of  society.  The  process  could  equally 
well  have  been  reversed,  and  it  could  have  been  shown 
that,  human  nature  having  these  elements  in  it,  the 
essential  features  of  society  necessarily  result. 


V.    EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN 
EARLY    LIFE 

[Republic,  II.  376  c  to  III.  412  B.] 

i.  Introductory. 

After  this  slight  introduction  of  his  conception  of 
the  main  elements  in  human  nature  which  tend  to  bring 
about  society,  Plato  passes  rapidly  to  a  discussion  of  the 
nurture  and  education  of  that  nature.  He  has  fixed 
his  attention  on  one  function  of  the  greatest  importance 
in  the  state,  that  of  defence,  and  he  has  told  us  that  those 
who  are  to  discharge  this  function  must  be  men  in  whose 
nature  the  two  higher  elements  are  strongly  developed. 
His  next  question  accordingly  is,  how  such  a  character 
ought  to  be  trained,  and  he  proceeds  to  consider  the 
education  which  will  fit  it  most  fully  for  the  highest 
functions  in  the  state.  Nature  {fyvais)  and  nurture 
(rpo(f)ri)  are  the  two  things  which  go  to  make  up  human 
character.  Neither  will  do  without  the  other ;  you 
cannot  create  the  required  nature,  but  you  can  by 
nurture  do  everything  short  of  that ;  and  without  the 
proper  nurture  the  best  nature  is  as  likely  to  turn  out  ill 
as  to  turn  out  well. 

Plato's   general   view  of  education    is    most    forcibly 


78     LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

expressed  in  Book  VII l.  Its  object  is  there  said  to  be 
tectum  the  _eye,  which  the  soul  already  possesses,  tojhe 
light.  The  principle  which  Plato  conveys  by  this  meta- 
phor is  that  the  whole  function  of  education  is  not  to  put 
knowledge  into  the  soul,  but  to  bring  out  the  best  things 
that  are  latent  in  the  soul,  and  to  do  so  by  directing  it 
to  the  right  objects.  How  is  this  to  be  done  ?  First, 
by  surrounding  the  soul  with  objects  which  embody 
those  ideas  and  characteristics  which  are  to  be  developed 
in  it.  The  method  Plato  advocates  depends  upon  the 
theory  that  the  human  soul  is  essentially  an  imitative 
thing,  that  is,  that  it  naturally  assimilates  itself  to _its 
surroundings.  His  belief  in  the  overwhelming  impor- 
tance to  the  soul  of  the  surroundings  in  which  it  grows 
up  is  most  forcibly  put  in  Book  VI,  where  he  represents 
the  human  soul  as  a  living  organism,  and  says  that,  just 
as  a  plant  when  sown  in  the  ground  develops  according 
to  the  soil  and  the  atmosphere  it  lives  in,  so  it  is  with 
the  soul2.  The  soul,  he  considers,  is  indestructible,  but, 
though  ill-nurture  cannot  entirely  destroy  it,  it  may  very 
nearly  do  so.  The  problem  of  education,  then,  is_io-give 
it^the  jjght_surroundings.  The  chief  way  in  which  its 
surroundings  affect  it  is,  Plato  thinks,  through  its  tendency 
to  become  like  the  things  it  is  accustomed  to ;  it  is,  he 
says,  impossible  to  be  constantly  with  a  thing  you  admire 
without  becoming  like  it  ;  and  so,  in  the  system  of 
education  which  he  first  describes,  nothing  is  said  of 
direct  teaching  ;  the  whole  system  consists  in  surrounding 
the  soul  with  objects  like  what  it  is  to  be,  that  it  may 
live  in  a  healthy  atmosphere.  The  first  and  most 
obvious  instance  of  this  imitative  tendency  is  the  force 
with  which  the  example  of  other  men  acts  upon  us; 
1  518  b  sq.  2  VI.  491  d. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE       79 

hence  the  importance  of  accustoming  the  soul  to  think 
about  great  men  and  to  have  a  worthy  conception  of  the 
gods  it  worships.  But  the  same  thing  is  revealed  in 
another  aspect  when  we  come  to  consider  the  effect  of  art, 
for  the  soul,  Plato  thinks,  assimilates  beauty  from  con- 
templating it ;  and  a  third  aspect  of  the  same  fact  will 
be  found  when  he  deals  with  the  education  of  science. 
The  soul,  then,  adapts  itself  to  its  environment,  and  it  is 
all-important  what  the  environment  is1. 

The  next  question  for  consideration  is,  What  instru- 
ments of  education  did  Plato  find  ready  to  his  hands 2  ? 
He  found  literature  the  main  instrument.  Every  Athe- 
nian gentleman  was  brought  up  on  a  system  of  what  we 
should  call  general  culture,  studying  the  standard  litera- 
ture of  his  country  ;  there  might  be  added  to  this  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  some  art,  and  the  rudiments 
of  the  sciences  of  numbers  and  figures.  Plato  also  found 
gymnastics  in  common  practice.  These  agencies  he 
adopted,  and  gave  them  a  new  and  deeper  significance. 
He  conceived  that  in  early  life  the  main  instruments  for 
bringing  out  what  was  best  in  the  soul  were,  first,  litera- 
ture, beginning  with  stories  for  children  and  going  on  to 
poetry;  secondly,  music  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  playing 
and  singing ;  and  thirdly,  the  plastic  arts  (as  we  should 
call  them)  in  general.  All  these  come  under  the  head  of 
IxovatKi]  3. 

In  Books  II  and  III  Plato  deals  with  education  in 
Ixova-LKq.  In  Books  VI  and  VII  he  describes  a  further 
and  more  elaborate  system  of  education  for  later  life. 

1  Cf.  383  c,  391  e,  and  401  a  to  403  c,  especially  401  v. 

3  See  Aristotle,  Politics,  1337  b  sq. 

3  Compare  the  word  '  arts,'  which,  in  addition  to  its  ordinary  use,  is 
employed,  in  such  terms  as  '  Bachelor  of  Arts,'  with  special  reference  to 
literature. 


80  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

The  education  in  fxova-LK-q  would,  he  conceives,  go  on  till 
manhood,  that  is,  to  the  age  of  eighteen,  when  it  was  to 
be  succeeded  by  a  special  gymnastic  training  intended 
to  fit  the  young  citizens  for  military  and  other  duties 
which  require  a  strong  and  healthy  physique.  Then  was 
to  come  an  education  in  science,  leading  to  philosophy. 
The  education  in  ixovaiKi] — and  this  we  must  remember 
in  reading  these  books  which  deal  with  it  alone — would 
be  accompanied  all  along  not  only  by  a  certain  amount 
of  gymnastic  training,  but  by  elementary  teaching  in 
science  x. 

The  next  point  to  be  noticed,  though  it  does  not 
become  apparent  till  this  section  of  the  Republic  is  read 
in  connexion  with  Books  VI  and  VII,  is  that  the  order 
of  education  is  based  on  a  certain  theory  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  soul.  Th£_si2iil_is__x£ached  at  different 
stages  of  its  growth  by  different  agencies  and  through 
different  media.  It  is  affected  in  the  first  place  through 
certain  susceptibilities  which  we  should  perhaps  call 
fancy  and  imagination.  The  education  described  in 
Books  II  and  III  is  an  education  through  these,  and  acts 
upon  the  soul  in  that  stage  of  growth  in  which  imagi- 
nation, fancy,  and  feelings  are  the  strongest  things  in  it. 
It  is  supplemented  in  Books  VI  and  VII  by  an  education 
calculated  to  act  on  the  soul  when  reason  has  begun 
to  develop  and  to  require  training.  That  which  the 
training  in  \xova-iK7}  ought  essentially  to  produce  is  love 
of  what  is  beautiful  (fyoos  tov  kciXov),  love  of  the  beautiful 
in  whatever  form  it  appears.  By  the  education  which 
supplements  it  at  a  later  stage,  the  soul  is  to  be  made 
receptive  of  truth,  as  before  of  beauty;  the  object  of 
training   in  the  sciences  is  to  make  the  soul   love  truth 

1    Sec  I',t>.  ik  VII.  533  l>  and  537  C. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      8r 

(<f>i\oo-o(f>eu').  The  ultimate  purpose  of  both  kinds  of 
education  is  to  present  to  the  soul  the  good  under  various 
forms,  for  beauty  is  the  good  under  a  certain  form,  and 
so  also  is  truth.  'The  good 'in  Book  VI  is  that  supreme 
source  of  light  of  which  everything  good,  everything  true, 
and  everything  beautiful  in  the  world  is  the  reflexion, 
and  if  education  could  reach  its  utmost  aim  it  would  be 
in  the  knowledge  of  this.  The  greatest  thing  a  man  can 
learn  is  to  see  according  to  a  man's  measure  the  presence 
of  reason  and  divine  intelligence  in  the  world  about  him. 
So  from  its  earliest  stages  education  is  a  method  of 
helping  the  soul  to  see  the  good,  but  in  all  kinds  of 
different  ways. 

The  object,  then,  of  early  education  should  be  to 
present  to  the  soul  in  various  imaginative  forms  the  good 
which  it  will  afterwards_cpme  to  know  in  rational  forms. 
Through  what  forms  and  in  what  order  is  this  to  be 
done  ?  With  what  does  education  begin  ?  It  begins  with 
religion  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  good  is  presented  to  the 
soul  first  in  the  form  of  a  being  who  is  perfectly  good 
and  true;  and  the  purpose  of  teaching  about  such  a  being 
is  that  the  soul  maybe  as  like  God  as  possible1.  Hence 
the  importance  of  determining  the  true  nature  of  God, 
and  of  putting  it  before  the  minds  of  children  in  the 
simplest  and  clearest  way.  Accordingly,  Plato's  system 
of  education  begins  with  stories  of  a  mythological  kind, 
treating  of  the  divine  nature,  whose  very  essence  is  to  be 
good  and  true  ;  stories  which,  though  in  a  poetical  form, 
are  about  the  same  object  that  is  afterwards  to  be 
presented  to  the  soul  as  a  study  for  the  reason.  Beginning 
by  presenting  the  gods  as  beings  absolutely  good  and 
true,  education  goes  on  to  present  heroic  nature,  and  also 

1  See  383  C,  and  cf.  Theact,  176  A  sq. 
VOL.  II.  G 


82  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

human  nature,  in  its  highest  and  truest  forms.  It  goes 
on  again  to  present  reason  in  the  guise  of  beauty,  whether 
beauty  of  harmony  and  rhythm,  which  is  the  work  of 
music  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  or  beauty  of  form,  which 
is  the  work  of  the  plastic  arts.  The  function  of 
fMova-LKi]  is  to  teach  the  soul  to  read  the  sensible  world 
around  it ;  it  will  attain  its  end  if  it  teaches  the  soul 
to  discern  and  recognize  in  the  worlds  of  art,  of  nature, 
and  of  human  life,  the  infinitely  various  forms  of  the 
good  '  circulating  everywhere  about  it '  (402  c). 

Throughout  the  discussion  of  education  and  throughout 
the  Republic,  Plato  combines  with  the  exposition  of  what 
he  himself  considers  right,  a  great  deal  of  criticism  of 
existing  institutions.  The  criticism  is  so  constant  that 
people  are  apt  to  miss  the  positive  side  of  the  discussion. 
Plato's  views  are  developed  by  antagonism.  He  finds 
Homer,  Hesiod,  and  other  writers  read  and  looked  upon 
with  indiscriminate  reverence  by  the  Greeks  without 
regard  to  what  is  really  noble  in  them,  and  he  naturally 
begins  by  criticizing  their  works.  His  criticism  may 
often  strike  us  as  pedantic,  because  the  Greek  poets  are 
not  to  us  what  they  were  to  Plato  ;  we  do  not  look  upon 
them  seriously,  as  the  Greeks  did  x  ;  to  Plato  they  are 
the  food  upon  which  the  Greek  mind  is  nurtured  in  youth. 
Plato  himself  is  aware  that  in  his  treatment  of  poetry  he 
seems  to  take  away  a  great  deal  and  put  nothing  in  its 
place.  As  if  in  apology  for  this  he  tells  us  (379  a)  that 
his  business  in  this  dialogue  is  not  to  write  poems  but  to 
found  a  state,  and  that  accordingly  he  is  only  concerned 
to  lay  down  general  principles  for  poets  to  observe. 
It  is  a  natural  result  of  this  that  his  criticism  should 
to  a  great  extent  seem  merely  negative. 

1   Sec  X.  598  D  Sq,  and  606  E. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      83 

The  most  obvious  divisions  into  which  the  subject  of 
early  education,  as  Plato  treats  it,  falls,  are  ^ovo-ikt}  (376  E 
to  403  C)  and  yvuvao-TiKT}  (403  c  to  412  b).  Plato  at  first 
takes  this  division  in  the  popular  sense,  according  to  which 
the  former  is  the  training  of  the  soul  and  the  latter  of  the 
body ;  but  he  afterwards  corrects  this,  explaining  that 
both  act  upon  the  soul,  but  by  different  means  and 
through  different  elements  in  the  soul.  In  the  section  on 
lxovcriKr\  he  treats  first  of  literature  (376E  to  398 b),  after- 
wards of  music  (398  B  to  400  E)  and  the  plastic  arts  (400  E 
to  403  c).  The  treatment  of  literature  resolves  itself  into 
that  of  the  matter  and  that  of  the  form  of  literature 
(376  E  to  392  c  and  392  c  to  398  b).  Here  again  the 
ground  of  the  division  does  not  answer  to  what  we  should 
understand  by  it.  It  is  not  what  we  should  call  literary 
form  or  style  that  Plato  is  interested  in  when  he  deals 
with  what  he  calls  Ae£i?.  The  prominent  question  still  is, 
What  is  the  soul  to  be  taught  ?  and  it  is  only  because 
certain  forms  of  literature  are  calculated  to  affect  the 
soul  in  a  particular  way  that  the  question  of  form  comes 
to  be  treated  at  all. 

As  regards  matter,  the  primary  subject  of  educational 
literature  is  the  divine  nature  as  shown  in  stories  of  the 
gods,  from  which  Plato  passes  to  the  semi-divine  nature 
represented  in  the  stories  of  heroes  and  divine  men. 
Parallel  with  this  division  of  the  subject  runs  a  division 
according  to  the  moral  principles  which  this  literature 
ought  to  inculcate,  the  virtues  which  Plato  conceives  should 
be  made  the  basis  of  human  character.  We  begin  with 
the  two  fundamental  virtues  in  which  children  should  be 
brought  up,  reverence  for  parents  and  brotherly  feeling. 
Then  we  pass  (at  the  beginning  of  Book  III)  to  the 
virtues  no  longer  of  the  growing  child  but  of  the  grown 

G  2 


84  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

man,  the  two  recognized  cardinal  virtues  of  courage 
(avbpeta)  and  self-control  (o-oxppocrwT/),  and  a  third,  added 
by  Plato,  truth. 


2.  Moysikh  :  Myths  and  the  Beliefs 
taught  in  Literature. 

376  e  to  Plato   enters    upon   the   subject  of  iiovcnio'i  with    the 

Book  II.  startling  assertion  that  education  must  begin  with  what 
is  false.  He  has  in  mind  two  senses  in  which  a  thing 
may  be  false.  All  literature  and  all  words  are  in 
a  sense  false  if  they  represent  things  otherwise  than 
they  actually  are  or  have  happened ;  in  this  sense 
mythology  must  be  untrue — God  can  never  have  acted 
in  the  human  way  in  which  he  is  represented  as  acting 
in  myths,  and  Plato  tells  us  that  the  myths  are  all  false 
(382  D).  He  purposely  abstained  from  rationalizing  the 
myths,  as  was  customary  about  that  time,  and  in  the  Phae- 
drus x  he  expressly  rejects  this  practice  as  on  the  whole 
an  unprofitable  thing.  But  no  writer  ever  used  myths 
with  greater  effect  than  Plato,  for  the  very  reason  that 
he  knew  what  he  was  about.  In  the  Tii)iacus  he  says 
that  though  he  cannot  tell  us  the  exact  truth  about 
the  creation  of  the  world,  he  will  give  us  an  acount  of  it 
in  picture-language  and  in  a  myth  made  as  like  the 
truth  as  possible  -.  When  however  he  wished  to  speak 
most  in  earnest  about  the  nature  of  the  gods,  he  spoke 
not  in  the  language  of  myth  but  in  that  of  philosophy. 
Plato  considered  all  anthropomorphic  language  about 
God  or  the  gods  as  mythological. 

But  there  is  another  sense  of  the  word  false  in  which 

1  229  U.  3    Tiinacus,  29  C. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      85 

not  all  myths  are  false.  That  which  is  false  in  the 
sense  of  being  fiction,  may  be  fiction  well  done  or  ill 
done  ;  it  is  well  done  when  it  embodies  a  true  idea  of 
that  which  it  is  intended  to  represent,  and  in  this  sense 
it  is  then  true.  Myths  which  represented  the  divine 
nature  as  doing  things  which  we  know  it  does  not  do, 
would  yet,  if  they  represented  as  nearly  as  possible 
what  the  divine  nature  really  is,  be  true  in  this  sense. 
A  myth  which  represented  God  as  doing  evil  would 
be  false  in  both  senses.  Plato,  then,  would  have  em- 
ployed myths,  knowing  them  to  be  untrue  in  form, 
but  as  expressing  substantial  truth  of  idea. 

Accordingly  (after  criticizing  certain  immoral  myths, 
chiefly  those  in  which  gods  are  represented  as  undutiful 
to  their  parents)  Plato  lays  down  certain  outlines  or 
principles  of  the  way  in  which  God  is  to  be  spoken 
of  (tvttoi  deoXoyias),  which  will  determine  what  is  a  true 
myth  and  what  is  a  false  myth.  These  principles  occupy 
the  place  of  what  we  should  call  a  system  of  dogma,  so 
far  as  that  place  is  occupied  at  all  in  the  thought  of  any 
Greek  writer.  The  first  is  that  God  is  good  and  the 
cause  of  good  alone  ;  the  second  is  that  God  is  true  and 
incapable  of  change  or  deceit.  These  two  canons  are 
directed  against  certain  false  ideas  of  the  popular 
religion. 

1.  When  Plato  speaks  (377  E  to  380  c)  of  the  goodness 
of  God,  the  prominent  idea  is  that  of  beneficence  or  doing 
good.  We  draw  a  distinction  between  moral  goodness  or 
being  good,  and  active  goodness  or  doing  good ;  to  Plato 
there  was  no  such  distinction.  He  rejects  therefore  all 
tales  which  assert  that  God  dispenses  evil  to  men  or 
injures  them.  We  may  find  an  analogous  passage  to 
this  in  the  chapter  of  Ezekiel  where  he  declaims  against 


86  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

the  saying,  ( The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes, 
and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge.'  Against 
popular  opinions  of  that  kind  Plato  urges  the  simple 
logical  deduction  that,  if  God  is  good,  he  cannot  be 
the  cause  of  anything  not  good.  In  the  Timaeus  l  we 
are  told  that  God  made  the  world  because  he  is  good 
and,  being  good,  wills  that  everything  should  be  as  like 
himself  as  it  is  possible  to  be,  by  being  as  good  as 
possible.  Thus  Plato  is  brought  across  the  old  problem 
of  the  origin  of  the  world.  He  admits  that  the  evil 
things  in  human  life  outnumber  the  good  ;  whence  comes 
this  evil  ?  He  gives  one  of  the  commonest  solutions 
of  the  problem  when  he  tells  us  we  must  either  say  of 
human  misfortunes  that  they  are  not  the  work  of  God, 
or  that  they  are  not  really  evils,  but  punishments  for 
which  man  is  the  better.  We  must  not  then  say  that 
God  is  the  cause  of  men's  misery,  and  we  must  not 
call  men  miserable  (aOXtot)  because  they  receive  punish- 
ment when  they  deserve  it 2.  This  really  means  that 
evil,  in  the  sense  of  misfortune,  is  not  evil  if  it  is  looked 
at  in  the  right  way. 

The  same  question  is  touched  upon  in  various  ways  in 
other  dialogues3.  We  are  told  in  a  number  of  passages 
that  evil  4  in  some  sense  or  other  is  a  necessary  ingre- 
dient in  human  life  and  in  this  world  as  it  is  for  man,  in 
the  physical  as  well  as  in  the  moral  world  ;  only  in 
the    divine    nature    is    evil    wholly    absent.     How    are 

1  29  K. 

1  Cf.  Gorgias,  477  E,  and  the  whole  passage  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 

3  See  Theaet.  176  a  ;  Polit.  269  c  sq.  and  273  B  sq. ;  Lysis,  221  A-c  ; 
(rat.  403  K  sq.  ;  Tim.  48  A  and  86  I!  sq.  ;  and  especially  Laivs,  X.903  H  to 
905  I). 

4  The  word  for  evil  (yrovrjpia)  covers  any  kind  of  defect  or  blemish, 
moral  or  otherwise. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      87 

we  to  regard  this  necessary  element  in  our  life  ?  In  the 
Laws  Plato's  answer  comes  to  this  :  We  only  call  things 
evil  because  of  our  ignorance  ;  if  we  saw  the  whole 
of  things  instead  of  a  little  fragment  close  to  ourselves, 
we  should  see  that  everything  works  for  good.  The 
conception  in  the  Republic  of  '  the  good  '  as  the  cause 
of  all  that  is,  and  as  the  highest  object  of  knowledge 
and  that  which  man  is  to  try  to  see  in  the  world, 
involves  the  same  idea.  Understanding  the  world  is 
seeing  the  good  that  is  in  it ;  to  see  the  good  in  the 
world  is  to  see  the  reason  of  things.  No  man  can 
attain  to  this,  but  it  is  the  ideal  which  is  to  guide 
man's  imperfect  knowledge.  Plato,  then,  has  two 
leading  convictions  on  this  subject.  He  holds  that 
the  universe,  so  far  as  man  has  experience  of  it,  is 
essentially  imperfect,  and  has  evil  in  it ;  there  is  an 
element  in  the  world  which  resists  the  action  of 
reason  or  the  will  of  God l.  But  equally  strongly  he 
holds  that,  the  more  we  understand  things,  the  more 
we  shall  see  that  evil  has  a  reason  for  it  and  therefore 
is  not  really  evil.  He  treats  these  as  two  ultimate  facts, 
and  he  nowhere  attempts  to  reconcile  them.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  say  whether  Plato  does  or  does  not 
assume  a  principle  of  evil  in  the  world  co-ordinate 
with  the  principle  of  good.  On  the  whole  the  idea 
of  the  beneficent  work  of  divine  reason  is  far  the  more 
prominent  in  his  writings. 

2.  The  second  principle  laid  down  (380  D  to  end  of 
Book  II)  is  the  truth  of  God,  and  Plato  takes  this  as 
meaning  two  things  :  first,  that  God  cannot  change  ;  and, 
secondly,  that  God  cannot  lie.  (a)  Of  change,  he  tells  us, 
there  are  two  kinds  :  change  from  without  produced  by 
1  See  Timacus,  48  a  and  53  B,  and  of.  42  D. 


88  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

external  agents,  and  change  from  within  by  the  will  of  the 
person  changing.  First  then,  can  we  conceive  that  God 
is  liable  to  change  owing  to  external  agencies  ?  Plato 
answers  by  enunciating  a  characteristic  idea  of  Greek 
philosophy,  that  liability  to  change  imposed  from  without 
is  a  sign  of  inherent  vice  or  weakness.  He  takes  the  most 
varied  instances,  living  things,  the  human  soul,  works  of 
art,  and  applies  to  all  the  same  principle,  that  in  propor- 
tion as  a  thing  is  good  of  its  kind  it  is  less  liable  to  be 
changed  by  external  influences.  God  then,  being  the 
best  of  things,  is  least  liable  to  this.  We  also  should 
regard  being  easily  affected  by  outside  influences  (in 
a  certain  sense)  as  a  sign  of  inferiority ;  the  stronger 
a  man  is.  the  less  do  changes  of  climate,  food,  and  the 
like,  affect  him,  and  there  is  no  such  sign  of  inherent 
moral  force  as  being  able  to  stand  any  number  of 
changes  without  being  affected.  This  view  contains 
the  germ  of  the  idea  which  lies  at  the  root  of  Stoicism, 
that  strength  or  virtue  shows  itself  in  the  capacity 
to  remain  unchanged  by  any  conceivable  circumstances. 
As  for  the  question  whether  God  can  change  himself, 
this  is  answered  by  the  conception  of  divine  perfection. 
The  only  motive  to  voluntary  self-change  must  be  want, 
and  that  motive  cannot  operate  with  God,  for  he  is 
from  the  first  perfect  and  wanting  nothing  '. 

The  divine  nature,  then,  is  constant  and  unchanging. 
This  canon  is  directed  mainly  against  the  polymorphism 
of  Greek  gods,  and  under  it  Plato  forbids  stories, 
analogous  to  ghost  stories,  by  which  children  were 
frightened  ;  all  these  are  in  his  view  a  degradation  of 
the  divine  being.     A  good  deal  of  polytheistic  mytho- 

1  Cf.  Aristotle,  Elh.  Nic.  VII.  xiv.  8,  where  change  is  connected  with 
irovfjpia,  imperfection. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE       89 

logy  of  the  sort  that  he  is  speaking  of1  survives  in 
modern  Europe  in  the  byways  of  popular  religion 
and  superstition.  Throughout  this  passage  Plato  speaks 
of  God  without  hesitation  as  having  form  and  shape 
(using  the  words  fxopc^-q  and  ethos)  quite  in  accordance 
with  the  ordinary  language  of  his  day  ;  and  he  speaks 
indifferently  of  God  and  of  gods.  The  principle  he 
lays  down  is  essentially  a  monotheistic  principle,  and 
excludes  the  idea  of  God  hav:ng  shape  at  all,  since  what 
has  shape  is  of  course  liable  to  change ;  but  when  he  is 
speaking  of  education,  and  of  how  religious  ideas  can  be 
presented  to  children's  minds  in  an  intelligible  form,  he 
does  not  scruple  to  use  the  language  of  the  popular 
religion.  In  the  Pliacdrns'1  he  tells  us  by  implication 
that  though  we  may  think  of  God  as  having  a  body,  this 
conception  of  him  is  due  to  our  imperfect  way  of  thinking, 
and  is  only  our  fiction  about  him. 

{b)  Next  we  come  to  the  question  whether  God  can 
lie ;  for  in  answer  to  what  has  just  been  said,  it  may 
be  objected  that,  though  the  gods  do  not  change,  they 
may  delude  us  and  make  us  think  they  do  ;  they  may, 
without  really  changing  themselves,  appear  to  us  in  all 
sorts  of  shapes.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of 
lying  (\l/evb€a0ai)  in  general.  Under  this  head  Plato 
includes  all  modes  of  producing  false  impressions,  but 
in  the  first  place  he  describes  falsehood  in  a  peculiar 
sense  of  the  word,  a  falsehood  in  which  no  being,  god 
or  man,  would,  if  he  knew  it,  acquiesce.  For  \{/evdeadai, 
besides  meaning  to  make  a  false  statement  with  intent  to 
deceive,  may  mean  to  be  in  a  state  of  \j/evbos  (falsehood) 

1  381  e.     Cf.   Laws,  XI.  932  E  sq. ,  where  laws  against  the  pretence  of 
witchcraft  are  advocated. 

2  246  c. 


go 


LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 


oneself,  or  to  be  the  victim  of  an  illusion.  This  is  what 
Plato  calls  the  '  lie  in  the  soul,'  which  is  what  we  might 
call  self-delusion ;  and  this,  he  tells  us,  gods  and  men 
equally  hate.  It  seems  at  first  a  very  strong  way  of 
speaking  of  ignorance.  We  can  best  understand  it  by 
comparing  a  passage  about  ignorance  in  the  Sophist1, 
where  he  says  there  are  two  forms  of  mental  evil :  vice, 
which  he  compares  to  bodily  disease,  and  ignorance,  which 
he  compares  to  bodily  deformity  (aia^os).  Ignorance,  he 
says,  means  that  the  soul,  having  an  impulse  towards  the 
truth,  thinks  '  beside  the  mark,'  like  a  man  who  cannot 
guide  the  motions  of  his  limbs  as  he  wishes;  and  this 
deformity  he  also  describes  as  '  want  of  proportion ' 
(d/xerpta).  So  in  Book  VI  of  the  Republic  he  describes 
the  opposite  of  this  deformity  as  '  proportion '  (e/x/xerpia) 
of  the  soul 2.  He  thinks  of  the  soul  as  being  either 
proportioned  or  disproportioned  so  as  to  be  well  or  ill 
adapted  to  take  hold  of  truth,  just  as  a  hand  may  be 
well  or  ill  adapted  for  taking  hold  of  things.  We  mean 
by  ignorance  simply  want  of  information,  and  this  of 
course  is  a  part  of  what  Plato  means  by  ignorance  ;  but 
the  radical  sense  of  it  with  him  is  something  far  more 
important  than  this  ;  it  is  being  out  of  harmony  with 
the  facts  of  the  world  ;  and  we  may  compare  Plato's 
language  about  it  with  the  way  in  which  Carlyle  con- 
stantly speaks  of  incapacity  to  recognize  the  '  fact,'  or 
with  the  phrase  in  the  second  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians, 
'  God  shall  send  them  strong  delusion,  that  they  should 
believe  a  lie.'  By  truth  as  a  quality  attributed  to  human 
character,  Plato  means  being,  so  to  say,  in  a  true  state, 
a  state  which  answers  to  the  facts  or  to  the  order  of  the 
world  ;  ignorance,  in  its  deeper  sense  as  the  opposite  of 
1  228  c  sq.  '2  486  v. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE       91 

this,  is,  he  tells  us,  a  thing  that  everybody  abhors ;  for 
if  it  were  put  to  any  one, '  Do  you  wish  to  believe  lies?' 
he  would  refuse  with  honor  ;  it  is  a  form  of  madness, 
madness  being  an  extreme  and  permanent  form  of 
believing  lies. 

This  sense  of  '  lying '  is  only  mentioned  here  to  be  set 
aside;  God  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  creating  illusion 
in  us  because  he  is  the  victim  of  illusion  himself.  Can 
he  then  be  conceived  of  as  deluding  us  by  telling  a  lie  or 
by  presenting  to  us  deceiving  circumstances  ?  We  must 
first  ask  what  circumstances  there  are  under  which 
lying  is  not  detestable.  There  are  cases  in  which  it  has 
a  remedial  use,  like  a  medicine,  as  in  dealing  with  mad 
people ;  and  there  is  the  analogous  case  of  war,  in 
which  it  is  assumed  that  lying  is  justifiable.  Like  every 
remedy  it  is  in  itself  an  evil,  but  in  such  cases  it  is  the 
lesser  of  two  evils.  It  is  sometimes  justifiable  also  on 
the  ground  of  ignorance.  When  we  do  not  know  all  the 
truth,  we  may  represent  it  as  nearly  as  we  can,  knowing 
that  our  representation  is  partly  false.  But  none  of  these 
motives  can  apply  to  God  ;  for  he  has  no  enemies  to  fear, 
and  no  emergencies  like  that  of  dealing  with  a  madman 
to  meet ;  and  he  is  omniscient.  The  conclusion  is  there- 
fore that  God  is  perfectly  simple  and  true  both  in  deed 
and  in  word ;  he  neither  changes  nor  deceives.  (The 
spoken  lie  is  here  said  to  be  a  sort  of  imitation  of  the 
affection  of  the  soul  ;  it  is  '  an  image  of  later  birth.'  The 
phrase  may  seem  to  suggest  that  the  man  who  tells 
the  lie  has  the  '  lie  in  the  soul '  first  and  is  himself 
deluded,  but  it  merely  means  that  the  spoken  lie  is  the 
expression  of  a  previously  conceived  false  thought,  not 
that  the  liar  is  ignorant  of  its  falsehood.) 

The  passage  sometimes  gives  people  an  uncomfortable 


92     LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

feeling  that  Plato  considers  deliberate  lying  not  so  bad 
as  being  ignorant,  but  the  question  of  moral  guilt  is  not 
raised  at  all  in  the  comparison  between  them.  Plato 
simply  says  that  a  state  of  delusion  is  a  state  everybody 
would  naturally  hate  to  be  in ;  he  implies  that  most 
people,  if  they  had  the  choice,  would  rather  tell  a  lie 
than  be  under  some  complete  delusion  about  some  very 
important  truth ;  and  he  is  probably  right ;  how  the 
two  compare  in  moral  worth  is  a  further  question,  on 
which  he  says  nothing1.  In  what  he  does  say  as  to 
the  morality  of  deceiving  others,  he  makes  it  a  question 
of  motive  and  of  the  object  to  be  obtained.  If  the  good 
to  be  obtained  by  a  falsehood  is  greater  than  the  harm 
done,  and  is  not  to  be  obtained  in  any  other  way,  then 
the  lie  does  not  matter.  In  accordance  with  this  principle 
Plato,  later  on,  justifies  the  maintenance  among  the 
people  of  a  belief  known  by  the  rulers  to  be  false,  which 
he  says  will  conduce  to  patriotism  among  those  who  are 
not  enlightened  enough  to  appreciate  the  real  reason  for 
it 2.  Such  passages  show  us  that  in  one  direction  at  any 
rate,  where  we  should  see  a  very  great  danger  in  the 
mere  fact  of  saying  what  was  untrue,  Plato  did  not  see 
it.  Nevertheless,  whenever  he  thinks  lying  justifiable  it 
is  as  a  compromise,  a  concession  to  human  weakness. 
It  implies  the  presence  of  an  evil  which  you  arc  too 
weak  to  deal  with  in  any  other  way.  The  point  in 
which  people  really  differ  about  this  is  as  to  where 
the  necessity  for  saying  what  is  not  true  begins.     The 

1  [The  conception  of  the  '  lie  in  the  soul '  is  not  returned  to,  but  later 
on  Plato  closely  associates  immorality  anil  low  aims  in  life  with  illusion 
(se<  i  specially  IX.  585  K  sq.),  and  it  is  a  fair  interpretation  of  him  to  say 
that  to  have  the  'lie  in  the  soul'  in  the  fullest  degree  would  be  to  be 
completely  immoral. — Ed.] 

3  See  414  B  sq. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      93 

greater  a  man  is  the  less  he  finds  the  necessity  for 
lying ;  the  possibility  of  telling  the  truth  under  diffi- 
cult circumstances  is  one  of  the  greatest  tests  of  strong 
character. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  telling  the  truth  was 
not  a  national  virtue  of  the  Greeks,  and  though  in  the 
passage  which  shortly  follows *  what  Plato  says  about 
it  is  strict  and  emphatic,  we  see  here  that  he  is  more 
concerned  about  the  being  in  a  state  of  truth  than  about 
the  telling  of  the  truth 2.  A  connecting  link  between 
the  idea  of  truth  as  being  in  a  true  state  and  that  of 
truthfulness  in  our  sense,  may  be  found  in  a  quality  to 
which  Aristotle  gives  the  name  of  truth 3.  This  is  not 
truth-telling  in  general  but  being  true  to  yourself  in  what 
you  say,  being  what  you  profess  to  be  and  professing  to 
be  what  you  are.  Truth  in  this  sense  seems  to  have 
struck  the  Greeks  as  more  important  than  what  we  call 
truthfulness.  The  sense  of  its  importance  goes  along 
with  the  hatred  of  versatility  and  of  want  of  personality 
which  comes  out  so  strongly  in  the  Republic  4.  We  know 
that  some  at  any  rate  of  the  Greek  peoples  were  very 
much  inclined  to  a  sort  of  aimless  versatility ;  and  no 
doubt  it  was  this  fact  that  led  Plato  to  insist  upon  this 
matter  so  strongly.  This  too  leads  him  to  make  it  one 
of  the  first  principles  to  be  observed  about  the  divine 

1  389  E  to  D. 

2  [Cf.  VI.  485  c,  where  the  philosophic  nature  is  said  to  be  truthful  in 
every  way,  and  a  curious  motive  for  truthfulness  is  given  ;  the  philosopher 
is  passionately  desirous  himself  to  attain  the  truth,  and  lying,  it  appears, 
will  be  odious  to  him,  by  a  sort  of  association  of  ideas,  because  they 
remind  him  of  false  belief  which  he  wishes  himself  to  be  free  from.— Ed.] 

3  In  the  list  of  virtues,  Eth.  Nic.  II.  vii.  12.  When  he  discusses  this 
quality  later,  ibid.  IV.  7,  he  says  it  has  no  name,  but  the  man  who 
possesses  it  iv  \uyq>  teal  iv  picy  a\rjQevei,  rS>  tt)v  %£iv  toiovtos  elvai. 

*  See  especially  394  E  sqq. 


94    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  l  REPUBLIC 

nature,  that  it  is  '  simple  and  least  of  all  things  capable 
of  departing  from  its  own  form x '  (380  d). 
ill.  a  to  At  the  beginning  of  Book  III  we  pass  from  the  con- 

sideration of  God  himself,  or  the  gods  themselves,  to 
that  of  the  divine  nature  as  it  appears  fused  with  human 
nature;  for  most  of  the  myths  criticized  and  appealed 
to  are  not  about  the  gods,  but  about  semi-divine  beings 
(baifxoves)  and  heroes,  and  the  rest  are  myths  in  which 
(as  in  the  story  of  Zeus  and  Sarpedon)  gods  are  affected 
by  human  emotions  with  regard  to  men ;  we  are  thus 
moving  in  the  borderland  between  gods  and  men.  Inci- 
dentally this  gives  Plato  the  opportunity  both  to  expound 
positively  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  highest  moral 
nature,  and  also  to  criticize  negatively  the  current  con- 
ceptions about  it,  suggesting  what  poets  ought  to  say 
by  examples  of  what  they  ought  not  to  say.  (This  is 
a  double  process  going  on  all  through  the  Republic,  and 
often  the  polemical  side  seems  uppermost.)  At  the  same 
time  we  pass  from  the  foundation  of  education,  which  is 
to  be  laid  in  the  feeling  of  reverence  to  gods  and  to 
parents  and  in  brotherly  feeling,  to  the  specific  virtues 
of  courage,  truthfulness,  and  self-control.  These  virtues 
arc  to  be  inculcated  by  setting  before  the  soul  heroic 
types  of  them,  just  as  in  the  preceding  passage  the  more 
ultimate  principles  of  morality,  goodness  and  unchange- 
ableness,  were  presented  to  the  soul  in  stories  about  the 
divine  nature.  Further,  whereas  in  the  last  part  of 
Book  II  Plato  is  speaking  mainly  of  the  education  of 
children,  in  the  beginning  of  Book  III  it  is  clearly  young 
men  and  not  children  that  he  has  chiefly  in  mind.  It  is 
necessary  to  look  at  this  part  of  the  Republic  from  all 

1  For  further  treatment  of  Plato's  attitude  towards  truth,  see  Section 
VI,  page  135. 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE       95 

these  points  of  view  in  order  to  see  the  full  scope  of  it. 
It  is  partly  concerned  with  a  system  of  education,  partly 
with  the  exposition  of  moral  principles,  partly  with 
criticism. 

Courage  is  treated  of  first  (386  A  to  389  b).  There 
are  different  accounts  of  the  virtues  in  different  parts  of 
the  Republic,  and  if  we  want  to  form  a  true  estimate 
of  Plato's  ideas  about  any  virtue  we  must  put  all  the 
passages  about  it  together.  So  we  shall  have  to  return 
to  courage  later 1.  Here,  as  in  other  cases,  we  start  with 
the  popular  Greek  conception  of  courage  as  meaning 
fearlessness  of  death  ;  to  the  Greek  mind  (as  Aristotle 
tells  us)  death  is  the  typically  terrible  thing  (betvov), 
and  the  bravest  man  is  he  who  is  not  afraid  to  die. 
Afterwards  the  conception  of  courage,  while  still  of 
course  including  this,  is  widened  so  as  to  include  all 
holding  out  against  anything  terrible,  anything  from 
which  human  nature  is  wont  to  shrink.  The  primary 
sense  of  courage  leads  Plato  here  to  make  some  remarks 
about  the  nature  of  death  and  the  life  of  the  soul  after 
death.  He  says  that  a  good  man  at  any  rate  has  no 
cause  to  think  death  terrible.  It  follows  that  he  will 
not  think  it  terrible  for  his  friends  who  are  good,  and, 
both  for  this  reason  and  because  of  all  men  the  good 
man  is  most  independent,  he  will  bear  the  loss  of  friends 
better  than  other  men.  As  for  the  terrible  pictures 
that  are  drawn  of  the  world  below,  though  they  are 
poetically  effective  and  stimulate  the  imagination  and 
the  emotions,  they  are  not  true  and  they  do  no  good. 
It  is  to  be  noticed  how  Plato  always  associates  the  truth 
of  a  belief  with  its  expediency ;   he  did  not  think  they 

1  Cf.  IV.  429  A  to  430  C,  441  E  to  442  C ;  VI.  486  A  sq.,  503  B  to  E  ; 
and  with  the  last  compare  VII.  535  B. 


96     LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

were  one  and  the  same  thing,  but  they  were  connected 
in  his  mind  1. 

We  pass  almost  imperceptibly  from  courage,  which  has 
been  expanded  to  include  not  only  fearlessness  of  death 
for  oneself  but  fearlessness  of  death  for  one's  friends,  to 
endurance  (na-prepta),  the  passive  side  of  courage  ;  and  here 
Plato  has  occasion  to  criticize  the  extravagant  expressions 
of  grief  that  appear  in  Homer,  condemning  them  the  more 
severely  since  they  are  put  into  the  mouths  of  men  and 
even  of  heroes.  Is  the  picture  of  a  hero  rolling  on  the 
ground  with  grief  really  a  worthy  example?  From 
endurance  in  the  sense  of  control  of  grief  we  pass  to  con- 
trol of  excessive  feeling  in  general.  Endurance  is  thus 
the  meeting-point  of  courage  and  of  temperance  or  self- 
control  (a-Mcppoavvq).  It  is  very  characteristic  of  Plato  to 
be  perpetually  showing,  as  he  does  in  this  passage,  points 
of  connexion  between  things  apparently  very  different  ; 
his  conceptions  are  never  at  rest  in  his  hands,  but  are 
continually  passing  into  one  another.  Throughout  the 
treatment  of  these  virtues  we  find  the  characteristic  Greek 
idea  that  excess,  whether  in  grief,  or  in  laughter,  or  in 
appetite,  or  in  any  passion  or  emotion,  is  intrinsically  bad. 
We  have  to  remember  that  dignity  was  not  a  strong 
point  of  Greek  character.  The  Greeks,  or  some  sections 
of  the  Greek  race,  were  very  liable  to  violent  emotions  ;  and 
hence  it  was  that  the  Greek  moral  philosophers  insisted 
on  control  of  emotion  as  they  did.  The  Greeks  had  a  sort 
of  natural  want  of  self-respect  and  a  tendency  to  forget 
themselves,  which  particularly  struck  the  Romans  as 
unworthy.  If  we  do  not  bear  this  in  mind,  the  treatment 
of  grief  iu  this  passage  will  appear  hard  and  stoical,  and 
the  mention  of  laughter  absurd.     The    basis  of   Plato's 

'  391  '•• 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE       97 

view  is  not  that  it  is  bad  to  feel,  but  that  excess  of  emotion 
reacts  upon  the  character  and  weakens  it 1. 

Between  the  passages  on  courage  and  on  self-control 
comes  a  short  passage  on  truthfulness  (389  B  to  d).  This 
is  here  considered  as  a  part  of  obedience,  and  in  re- 
ference to  recognition  of  authority  in  general.  It  is 
assumed  that  lying  is  hateful  in  itself  unless  justified  by 
circumstances,  and  the  circumstances  which  justify  lying 
can  only,  Plato  says,  apply  to  persons  in  authority.  A 
doctor  may  deceive  his  patient  for  his  patient's  benefit, 
and  the  rulers  may  deceive  for  the  public  good.  To  all 
others  truthfulness  is  a  principle  without  exception.  For 
the  citizen  to  tell  a  lie  to  those  in  authority  is  like  a  man's 
telling  a  lie  to  his  doctor. 

This  leads  up  to  self-control  or  temperance  (o-cotypoavvri) 2, 
the  essence  of  which  is  obedience  to  authority,  whether 
to  a  ruler,  or  to  the  higher  self  within  oneself  (389  D  to 
392  a).  Plato  treats  of  self-control,  first  as  obedience 
to  persons  in  authority,  secondly  as  the  control  of  the 
appetites  (and  especially  as  to  the  restraint  of  lust  and  of 
avarice,  which  latter  is  constantly  associated  with  bodily 
appetites  in  the  Republic),  thirdly  as  the  control  of  wanton- 

1  Cf.  X.  604  A  sq.,  especially  604  C. 

2  [Cf.  IV.  430  e  to  432  A  and  442  c.  'Temperance'  is  the  word 
generally  used  in  translations.  '  Self-control '  covers  the  ground  better, 
but  its  defect  as  a  translation  is  that  it  suggests  effort  and  constraint, 
whereas  a  man  is  not  aweppcuv  in  Plato's  or  in  Aristotle's  sense,  unless  his 
mastery  of  his  passions  and  impulses  is  so  easy  and  assured  that  there  is 
no  sense  of  constraint  about  it.  Aristotle  expressly  contrasts  aaxppoovvr) 
with  (yKparaa,  the  forcible  restraint  of  oneself;  and  in  Rep.  IV.  430  E 
to  432  A  the  same  distinction  is  implied  (aaicppoavvq  being  the  '  harmony  ' 
and  'agreement'  of  the  different  elements  in  the  soul).  In  addition  to  the 
senses  of  autypoavv-q  mentioned  above,  one  of  its  commonest  senses  in 
Greek  is  that  of  sanity.  "Zwippcuv  was  also  used,  almost  as  a  party  name, 
to  describe  the  upholders  of  aristocracy  or  of  a  very  much  limited  de- 
mocracy.—Ed.] 

VOL.  II.  H 


98    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

ness,  insolence,  or  pride  (fySpis),  which  is  illustrated  by 
the  stories  of  Achilles.  The  meaning  of  aoicppocrvvrj  is 
best  understood  by  its  opposite,  i'/3pi9,  which  is  the  general 
spirit  of  setting  oneself  up  against  what  is  higher  than 
oneself,  whether  by  insubordination  to  constituted  autho- 
rity and  divine  law,  or  by  the  rebellion  of  the  appetites 
against  the  law  of  reason.  Thus  this  quality  in  some 
degree  includes  what  we  call  humility.  It  is  often  said 
that  the  virtue  of  humility  is  not  recognized  in  the  Greek 
moral  code,  but  the  man  who  was  a-wcppcav  in  regard  to 
the  gods  would  be  the  humble  man,  and  the  vj3phttik6$  is 
the  '  proud  man  '  in  the  language  of  the  Bible.  The  mis- 
representations of  the  divine  and  heroic  nature  which 
are  incidentally  criticized  throughout  this  passage  are 
peculiarly  Greek,  and  could  easily  be  compared  and  con- 
trasted with  the  misrepresentations  of  the  divine  nature 
which  are  criticized  by  the  Hebrew  prophets.  The 
human  weaknesses  which  the  Jews  attributed  to  their  God 
are  very  different  from  those  that  appear  here.  The 
most  notable  are  jealousy  and  anger,  resulting  in  unjust 
revenge  and  the  like  ;  as  the  essence  of  the  divine  nature 
in  the  Old  Testament  is  righteousness  or  justice,  so  the 
human  weakness  attributed  to  God  is  injustice. 

Now  that  we  have  laid  down  certain  principles  as  to 
the  true  nature  of  gods,  demi-gods,  and  the  world  after 
death,  it  would  remain,  Plato  says  (392  A  to  c),  to  lay 
down  principles  as  to  human  nature  and  how  it  should 
be  represented  In  literature  if  it  is  not  to  be  falsified.  As 
in  regard  to  the  divine  nature  there  arc  principles  by  the 
violation  of  which  talcs  about  the  gods  are  made  false 
in  the  most  serious  sense,  so,  as  to  human  nature  and 
human  life,  there  arc  certain  true  principles  which  popular 
literature  and  popular  ideas  commonly  violate.     We  arc 


EDUCATION    OF    RULERS    IN    EARLY    LIFE      99 

constantly  told  that  the  unjust  are  happy  and  the  just 
miserable,  and  this  goes  to  the  root  of  our  beliefs  about 
human  life.  Is  it  true  ?  This  question  cannot  be  an- 
swered yet,  he  tells  us  ;  because  it  is  really  the  question 
which  the  Republic  as  a  whole  is  designed  to  answer. 
If  we  eventually  find  that  this  is  not  the  true  view  of 
human  life,  that  justice  is  not  really  loss  and  injustice 
not  really  gain,  then,  looking  back  at  this  question,  we 
shall  be  able  to  say  that  these  popular  representations 
of  human  life  are  misrepresentations.  At  present  we 
can  only  say  it  by  anticipation. 

3.  Moysikh:  the  Art  of  Literature. 
Plato  has  so  far  considered  the  matter  of  literature,  or  392  c  to 

398  B. 

the  question  what  things  are  to  be  said.  The  next 
question  he  asks  is,  how  these  things  are  to  be  said  (Ai£is), 
or,  What  is  to  be  the  form  of  literature  ?  In  the  transition 
to  this  question  we  really  pass  to  the  consideration  of  Art, 
for  the  principles  which  Plato  lays  down  about  literature 
are  carried  on  in  his  treatment  of  the  whole  of  the  rest  of 
IxovaiKrj.  It  is  a  fair  interpretation  of  his  procedure  to  say 
that,  regarding  education  as  a  gradual  nourishment  of  the 
soul  in  its  various  stages,  he  passes  here  to  a  stage  in 
which  the  artistic  sense  is  distinctly  developed,  and  there- 
fore has  to  be  educated  rightly  or  wrongly.  As  long  as 
education  is  confined  either  to  teaching  young  children 
or  to  inculcating  definite  and  simple  moral  qualities,  the 
artistic  sense  is  not  called  into  play,  and  it  scarcely  matters 
in  what  form  you  represent  truth.  But  at  a  certain  stage 
this  question  does  become  important,  because  the  soul 
that  is  being  educated  becomes  susceptible  to  artistic 
form  proper.     From  this  point  onwards  the  discussion 

II  2 


too         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

of  ixovaiKri  has  to  do  with  this  stage  in  the  soul's  growth; 
throughout  the  question  of  form,  whether  in  literature 
or  music  or  the  plastic  arts,  is  the  principal  one  con- 
sidered, and  the  susceptibility  to  form  is  being  taken 
account  of  as  the  chief  thing  requiring  nurture  for  the 
present. 

We  begin  with  the  treatment  of  form  in  literature. 
First,  the  idea  of  imitation  (juijiujo-is)  is  explained  in  its 
application  to  literature  (392  C  to  394  c).  Then  the 
educational  requirements  of  a  literature,  which  should 
really  develop  the  sort  of  character  which  is  worth 
developing,  are  explained  (394  c  to  396  b).  Next,  the 
good  and  bad  in  literature  are  distinguished  in  the  light 
of  the  results  thus  attained  (396  B  to  397  c).  Lastly, 
a  judgment  is  passed  on  poetry  (397  C  to  398  b).  It  is 
above  all  necessary  to  realize  first  what  is  the  question 
that  Plato  has  in  his  mind.  The  first  impression 
made  is  that  he  is  discussing  a  purely  literary  or  aesthetic 
question,  and  we  naturally  suppose  that  he  will  try  to 
make  out  what  form  of  poetry — epic,  lyric,  dramatic,  &c. — 
is  best  for  education.  But  he  does  not  do  this  at  all  ; 
the  answer  to  the  question,  What  is  good  poetry  ?  is  given 
in  terms  of  ethical  not  of  literary  criticism.  The  question 
of  form  in  literature  becomes  the  question,  Are  the  men 
whom  we  arc  training  to  be  imitative  (juu/^tikoi),  and,  if  so, 
imitative  of  what  ? 

First,  then,  we  must  consider  Plato's  conception  of 
imitation.  The  word  fxlfirjins  is  used  in  the  Republic  in 
two  ways,  in  a  general  and  in  a  specific  sense.  In  its 
more  general  sense  we  have  already  seen  it  applied  to 
literature  ;  poets  were  blamed  for  making  bad  copies 
of  the  gods  ',  and  the  use  of  myths  was  said  to  be  that 

1  377  E  and  388  C. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE        101 

they  should  give  representations  of  gods  and  heroes  which 
were  as  far  as  possible  like  them.  In  this  more  general 
sense  of  the  word  '  imitation,'  how  does  poetry  imitate  ? 
One  must  dismiss  from  one's  mind  here  the  question 
whether  a  poet  or  artist  imitates  nature,  or  whether  he 
originates  or  creates.  When  Plato  talks  of  the  poet  as 
imitating,  in  this  general  sense  of  the  word,  he  is  merely 
thinking  of  the  fact  that  the  poet  represents  things,  that 
words  are  to  the  poet,  what  colour  is  to  the  painter, 
a  medium  through  which  he  represents  certain  objects  or 
events.  The  use  of  the  word  '  imitation '  in  this  wide  sense 
was  familiar  to  the  Greeks,  and  its  import  was  to  put  the 
function  of  the  poet  alongside  that  of  other  artists. 
'  Representation  '  is  the  best  word  for  piix-qo-is  in  this  sense. 
It  is  important  here  again  to  remember  that  Plato 
regards  the  human  soul  as  essentially  an  imitative  thing, 
a  thing  which  naturally  and  instinctively  makes  itself 
like  to  its  surroundings.  When  we  read  books  or  see 
plays  or  hear  stories,  if  we  are  interested  we  do  to  a  certain 
extent  make  ourselves  like  the  characters  in  whom  we 
are  interested.  Accordingly,  when  Plato  is  talking  of 
imitation  we  must  think  of  the  audience  quite  as  much 
as  of  the  dramatic  poet  or  actor ;  the  spectator  enters 
into  the  situation  and,  so  far  as  he  does  so,  is  an  imitator 
(ij.lijlj]tijs).  If  this  were  not  so  in  Plato's  view,  literature 
would  not  have  such  enormous  importance  in  his  eyes. 
Men  are  naturally  imitative  (jui/x?;tikoi),  and  literature  is 
one  of  the  things  that  call  out  this  tendency.  Now  all 
imitation  tends  to  become  the  real  thing ;  by  simu- 
lating a  thing  one  catches  something  of  the  reality ;  one 
imitates  the  thing  one  is  interested  in,  and  one  gradually 
becomes  the  thing  one  imitates.  With  this  conception 
of  the  effect  of  literature  in  his  mind,  Plato  now  asks 


io2         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

what  is  the  best  literature  for  drawing  out  what  is  best  in 
human  nature ;  and  that  is  the  ultimate  question  before 
him  throughout  this  discussion. 

The  discussion,  however,  is  first  raised  with  regard  to 
the  value  of  literature  which  is  imitative  in  a  specific 
sense ;  for  while  all  literature  is  imitative,  one  kind  of 
literature  differs  from  another  in  manner  and  degree 
of  imitation,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  extent  to  which  it 
brings  before  us  the  actual  circumstances  described,  or, 
as  we  should  now  say,  in  the  degree  to  which  it  is 
realistic.  Here  accordingly  '  imitation'  is  used  not  in  the 
generic  sense,  but  in  an  emphatic  sense  to  describe  that 
sort  of  literature  which  imitates  most,  or  is  most  realistic. 
The  poet,  Plato  says,  either  employs  narrative,  that  is, 
simply  tells  the  story,  or  he  employs  imitation,  or  he 
does  both.  By  imitation  he  here  means  impersonation 
— the  poet  puts  himself  as  much  as  he  can  into  the  actual 
position  of  the  person  described.  The  drama  is  the  form 
of  literature  in  which  this  is  done  throughout  ;  epic  poetry 
employs  both  kinds  of  writing  ;  certain  sorts  of  choric 
and  lyric  poetry  employ  only  narrative. 

We  must  not  suppose  that,  because  this  distinction 
answers  to  a  distinction  of  literary  form,  Plato  rests  what 
he  has  got  to  say  on  grounds  of  literary  form.  Having 
distinguished  these  three  kinds  of  literature,  he  at  once 
tells  us  that  the  question  is  not  (at  present,  at  any  rate1) 
whether  we  arc  to  have  the  drama,  but  whether  the  men 
who  are  eventually  to  be  guardians  of  the  state  are  to 
be  imitators.  Now  if  the  question  in  his  mind  were 
confined  to  mere  forms  of  literature,  this  would  mean  that 
he  was  going  to  consider  whether  they  should  be  actors 

1  Notice  the  phrase  used  in  tliis  connexion,1  wc  must  go  whithersoever 
the  argument,  like  a  wind,  bears  us  '  ^394  l>). 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       ro3 

or  not ;  but  what  he  actually  discusses  is  not  so  much 
whether  they  are  to  be  imitative  as  of  what  they  are  to 
be  imitative;  what  characters  they  are  to  impersonate — 
with  what  characters,  that  is,  they  are,  so  far  as  imagina- 
tion enables  them,  to  identify  themselves1.  So  the  real 
question  in  his  mind  is  not,  as  he  first  makes  it  appear, 
whether  the  right  form  of  literature  is  dramatic  or  epic 
or  lyric  (that  is  quite  a  subordinate  matter,  and  in  the 
conclusion  of  the  argument  here  nothing  is  decided  about 
it),  but  what  sort  of  human  nature  is  worth  imitating  in 
literature.  And  that  means  (for  we  are  here  using 
imitation  in  the  narrower  sense),  What  sort  of  human 
nature  ought  to  be  most  realistically  represented,  or 
embodied  in  that  particular  way  which  most  stimulates 
imagination  ?  Ought  the  poet,  he  asks,  to  represent  as 
realistically  as  he  can,  with  all  the  force  of  his  genius, 
anything  and  everything  that  can  be  made  impressive 
and  exciting,  or  ought  the  poet,  regarded  as  the  servant 
of  the  state,  to  make  a  selection  and  throw  all  his  force 
into  representing  realistically  what  is  great  and  good  in 
human  nature  ?  To  Plato  there  can  be  only  one  answer. 
Only  that  in  human  nature  which  is  worth  making  part 
of  one's  own  character  is  worth  artistic  imitation  of  this 
intense  or  realistic  kind.  If  the  type  of  the  greatest  man 
was  the  man  who  could  put  himself  indiscriminately  into 
the  greatest  number  of  situations  or  characters,  then  the 
greatest  poet  would  also  be  such  a  man.  But  human 
nature,  Plato  tells  us,  is  so  cut  up  into  little  bits  that 
one  man  can  neither  imitate  nor  practise  well  more  than 
one  sort  of  life.  Since,  then,  what  a  man  imitates  settles 
into  a  sort  of  second  nature  with  him,  he  must  discrimi- 
nate in  what  he  imitates.     The  good  writer  will  only 

1  This  is  clear  in  395  c  sq. 


io4         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

lose  his  own  personality  in  some  other  worthy  of  himself; 
and  what  applies  to  the  writer  applies  also  to  the  spectator 
or  the  reader. 

This  being  the  real  question  at  issue,  Plato  gives  no 
explicit  answer  to  the  question  of  the  best  form  of  litera- 
ture. He  has  left  it  an  entirely  open  question  how  the 
great  poet  is  to  fulfil  the  demands  here  made  of  him  ;  he 
has,  he  says,  only  to  lay  down  outlines  for  the  guidance 
of  the  poet.  He  demands  of  poets  first  that  they  shall 
be,  in  a  sense,  servants  of  the  community  ;  for  otherwise 
there  is  no  place  for  them  in  the  community.  He  then 
says  to  them,  You  are  men  with  the  genius  to  represent 
life  in  a  vivid  way,  in  a  way  that  stimulates  imagination  ; 
exercise  this  faculty  upon  those  things  which  are  really 
worth  imitating.  He  believes  that  men  are  extremely 
susceptible  to  the  influence  of  literature,  and  that  its 
power  to  affect  character  is  very  great.  Accordingly,  he 
says,  not  that  good  literature  is  that  which  moralizes  (in 
our  depreciatory  sense  of  the  word),  but  that  it  is  that 
which  represents  human  nature  in  such  a  way  as  to 
stimulate  what  is  best  in  man.  There  are  two  sorts  of 
poets,  he  says.  The  bad  poet,  though  he  may  be  a  man 
of  great  genius,  will  throw  himself  into  any  and  every 
character,  and  will  thereby  become  extremely  popular, 
especially  with  children  and  slaves.  The  poet  with 
a  proper  sense  of  what  is  suitable  (fxt'r/uos  bvrjp,  396  c), 
when  he  has  to  treat  of  the  actions  or  speeches  of  '  good 
men  '  (a  phrase  which  meant  something  more  with  the 
Greeks  than  it  does  with  us),  will  throw  himself  as  much 
as  possible  into  them  and  will  represent  them  dramatically ; 
when  he  meets  with  the  weaknesses,  imperfections,  and 
failures  of  a  great  character  he  will  give  them  less  space  ; 
and    upon    quite    unworthy   characters  and    objects — on 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       105 

madness  or  disease,  for  example,  or  on  any  condition  in 
which  man  falls  conspicuously  below  himself — he  will 
spend  himself  least  of  all,  '  unless  it  be  in  a  humorous 
way '  (this  qualification  leaves  a  considerable  door  of 
escape  open,  and  gives  a  place  for  comedy).  As  to  what 
form  of  literature  would  best  answer  these  requirements 
no  clue  is  given  us  ;  that  is  left  to  the  poet. 

Plato  is  writing  with  direct  reference  to  certain  con- 
temporary facts  and  to  contemporary  poets,  though  we 
have  not  the  key  to  his  allusions.  Probably  all  the 
instances  that  he  takes  of  the  abuse  of  imitative  literature 
were  innovations  that  had  come  in  during  his  time.  He 
describes  certain  new  tendencies  in  tragedy  (395  D  sq.) ; 
probably  scores  of  dramatists  were  altering  the  character 
of  tragedy  in  the  same  direction  as  Euripides,  but  with 
much  less  power  K  As  to  comedy  (396  A  sq.),  he  refers  to 
horseplay  on  the  stage,  and  to  certain,  then  novel,  ways  of 
producing  broad  effects,  which  struck  him,  let  us  say,  as  a 
coach  and  horses  on  the  stage  might  strike  a  modern  critic. 
The  passage  about  imitating  the  neighing  of  horses,  the 
bellowing  of  bulls,  and  so  on  probably  refers  to  some  form 
of  dithyrambic  poetry,  perhaps  parallel  to  the  modern 
pantomime2.  From  these  passages,  and  from  Book  X, 
and  from  many  similar  passages  in  the  Lazvs,  it  is  clear 
that  Plato  felt  strongly  that  Greek  literature  and  music 
were  declining  ;  literature,  he  thought,  was  becoming  a 
mere  provider  of  stimulants  to  a  rather  morbid  imagina- 
tion. The  kind  of  aimless  variation  and  want  of  principle 
which  he  describes  in  contemporary  art,  is  the  counter- 

1  [Nettleship  here  apparently  referred  to  Arist.  Poetics,  1460  b,  34  sq., 
where  Sophocles  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  represented  men  as  they 
should  be  and  that  Euripides  represented  them  as  they  actually  were.] 

2  Cf.  Laws,  II.  669  C  sq.,  and  Aristophanes,  Phtiiis,  290. 


106         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

part  of  what,  in  regard  to  the  more  serious  matters  of 
life,  he  describes  in  the  character  of  the  democratic  man1. 

Plato's  principle  is  a  more  serious  principle  than  most 
people  care  to  apply  to  literature,  and  his  attitude  strikes 
us  as  austere  and  despotic,  not  only  because  of  the  limita- 
tions of  his  view,  but  still  more  because  he  takes  the 
matter  more  gravely  than  we  do.  If  we  would  really 
put  ourselves  in  an  analogous  position  to  Plato's,  we  must 
not  think  only  of  drama  or  of  romance,  but  of  religious 
literature,  the  Bible  and  all  that  takes  its  start  from 
the  Bible.  We  shall  then  recognize  the  sort  of  problem 
which  Plato  has  before  him  in  this  discussion  of  litera- 
ture. And  if  we  do  take  literature  in  a  serious  sense,  and 
see  in  it  the  greatest  educational  power  in  society,  the 
question  how  it  should  be  employed  becomes  one  which 
must  be  put,  in  considering  how  society  could  be 
made  fundamentally  better.  But  to  understand  not 
merely  the  serious  spirit  in  which  Plato  regards  litera- 
ture but  his  earnestness  about  the  particular  points  to 
which  he  directs  attention,  we  must  further  remember 
the  inherent  tendency  of  many  Greek  peoples  to 
be  '  imitative  men,'  always  posing  instead  of  being 
themselves. 

If  we  take  the  bare  principle  which  Plato  lays  down, 
there  is  nothing  in  it  hostile  to  any  great  literature  or 
art  (though  any  high  and  exacting  standard  may  be  said 
to  be  hostile  to  literature  and  art  at  their  ordinary  level), 
nor  is  there  any  reason  why  Plato's  requirements  should 
limit  the  genius  of  the  great  poet.  In  what  particular 
way  literature  may  be  made  to  conform  to  the  principle 
is  another  question,  and  one  so  difficult  that,  with  the 
exception  of  certain  religious  bodies,  no  state  or  society 

1   VIII.  561  Cto  K. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       107 

has  tried  to  find  a  practical  answer  to  it.  But  the  great 
poets  of  the  world  have  on  the  whole,  except  in  comedy, 
dealt  with  what  is  great  in  human  nature.  They  have 
of  course  differed  in  their  conceptions  of  what  is  the 
great  and  the  really  beautiful  in  human  nature  ;  and 
there  never  can  be  one  definite  and  final  answer  to  the 
question  in  what  way  this  principle  can  be  best  applied. 
In  one  respect  most  thoughtful  people  now  would  dis- 
agree with  the  spirit  in  which  Plato  seems  to  apply  his 
own  principle  ;  and  in  one  respect  the  modern  mind,  in 
its  highest  view  of  art,  differs  widely  from  the  Greek 
mind ;  it  is,  that  on  the  whole  it  looks  for  what  is  great 
and  what  is  beautiful  over  a  much  wider  range.  But, 
mutatis  mutandis,  there  is  just  the  same  question  in  the 
minds  of  men  now  as  to  the  limits  in  art  between  the 
great  and  the  small,  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly.  We 
should  think  it  absurd  for  the  state,  certainly  for  the 
British  Parliament,  to  lay  down  canons  of  art,  but  that 
does  not  prevent  us  from  having  canons.  The  great 
artists  of  the  world  have,  though  of  course  without 
telling  us  their  theory  or  perhaps  formulating  it  at  all  to 
themselves,  recognized  such  canons,  and  as  to  those 
canons  we  can  see  that  there  has  been  substantial  agree- 
ment among  them.  In  one  point,  and  that  the  main 
point,  they  have  acted  upon  Plato's  principle  ;  all  the 
great  artists  and  poets  are  ideal  ;  that  which  interests 
them  most  is  something  above  the  ordinary  level  of 
human  life.  On  the  other  hand,  in  one  way,  no  poet  has 
ever  come  up  to  Plato's  requirements,  for  none  has  ever 
deliberately  set  himself  to  be  the  educator  of  the  society 
he  lived  in.  Yet  if  we  take  a  very  great  poet  like  Dante, 
however  little  he  may  himself  have  contemplated  the 
effect  he  produced,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  strength 


108         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of  his   influence    in    forming    the    mind    of   generations 
after  him. 


4.   Moysikh  :   Music  and  the  Arts  generally. 

398  c  to  Winding  up  his  treatment  of  literature  by  describing 

403 c'  how  the  great  dramatic  genius,  who  can  imitate  every- 

thing, will  be  bowed  out  of  the  reformed  state,  Plato 
goes  on  to  deal  with  music  proper  upon  the  same  prin- 
ciple that  he  has  applied  to  literature,  namely,  that  it 
must  be  criticized,  and  approved  or  condemned,  as  an 
influence  for  good  or  evil  upon  character. 

What  is  the  ground  for  this  principle — for  we  here  pass 
to  something  different  from  the  direct  representation  of 
human  action  and  character  which  has  so  far  been  under 
consideration?  It  is  that  music  and  every  art  expresses 
character  (?]0os J)  in  the  soul  of  the  man  who  produces  it, 
and  in  the  soul  of  the  man  to  whom  it  appeals.  One  art 
differs  from  another  in  the  medium  that  it  uses,  but  in 
all  there  is  character,  good  or  bad  (tvi'jdeia  or  KaKoiideta). 
No  art,  therefore,  can  help  being  educational ;  it  affects 
character  because  it  expresses  character.  This  is  a  general 
principle  which  can  still  be  held  without  committing  us 
to  saying  in  what  particular  way  music  or  any  art  affects 
character.  You  cannot  put  music  into  words,  or  pictures 
into  words,  and  the  attempt  to  do  so  has  even  been 
harmful  ;  each  art  uses  its  own  medium,  and  has  its  own 
laws  ;  all  we  can  say  is  that  in  all  the  forms  of  art  soul 
speaks  to  soul  ;  each  art  has  its  own  form  of  sense,  and 
through  sense  soul  comes  in  contact  with  soul. 

In  his  treatment  of  music  (398  C  to  400  E),  Plato  must 
have    seemed    even    to    his    contemporaries    still    more 

1  400  !•"..     *H0os  does  not  mean  '  a  moral,'  it  means  character. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       109 

conservative  and  puritanical  than  in  his  treatment  of 
literature.  He  not  only  requires  the  musician  to  recog- 
nize that  he  has  a  work  to  do  in  the  state ;  he  says 
definitely  which  of  the  '  modes  '  or  '  harmonies '  of  Greek 
music  are  to  be  allowed  (namely,  the  Dorian  and  the 
Phrygian),  and  forbids  the  use  of  any  others ;  among 
musical  instruments  he  allows  only  the  lyre  and  the 
cithara,  and  (for  herdsmen  in  the  country)  the  Pan-pipes 
(avpiy£),  forbidding  the  use  of  all  instruments  upon  which 
more  complex  effects  could  be  produced,  and  of  the  flute; 
he  limits  rhythm,  though  not  so  definitely,  to  a  few  simple 
forms,  rhythms  which  will  be  suitable  to  an  orderly  and 
brave  man  ;  and  finally  he  insists  that  music  is  to  be 
subordinate  to  the  words  it  accompanies,  that  rhythm 
and  harmony  must  be  adapted  to  the  words  and  not 
the  words  to  them.  As  he  remarks,  we  have  now  begun 
the  purgation  of  the  'luxurious  city,'  eliminating  all  those 
elements  of  civilization  which  are  not  really  valuable,  but 
are  simple  luxuries l. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  leading  idea  which  runs 
through  all  Plato's  criticisms  of  the  music  and  of  the 
artistic  and  literary  work  of  his  time.  It  is  that  of 
simplicity  as  opposed  to  complexity.  There  is  a  right 
and  a  wrong  sense  in  which  it  may  be  said  that  art 
should  be  simple.  Plato's  objections  to  mere  indis- 
criminate imitation  of  human  life  arise  from  the  feeling 
that  such  indiscriminateness  implies  that  no  principle  of 
good  or  bad  in  human  life  is  recognized ;  his  saying  that 
men  ought  to  be  simple,  not  multiform  2,  is  the  expres- 
sion of  his  demand  that  some  principle  should  be  recog- 

1  For  more  detailed  treatment  of  the  passage  on  music  see  note  at  end 
of  this  subsection. 

2  397  E  (with  reference  to  music). 


no         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

nized.  So  when  he  comes  to  music,  he  objects  to  those 
kinds  of  music  which  involve  every  variety  of  rhythm, 
scale  and  the  like,  evidently  seeing  in  them  the  same  vice 
which  produces  in  literature  the  indiscriminate  imitation 
of  anything  interesting  (397  B,  c).  In  this  Plato  has 
probably  confused  two  ideas  of  simplicity.  In  one  sense 
every  great  work  of  art  is  simple  ;  it  is  the  working  out, 
in  however  complicated  a  manner,  of  certain  simple  and 
great  ideas.  But  there  is  another  sense  in  which  art  can 
be  simple,  and  in  which  we  often  speak  of  early  art  as 
being  distinguished  by  simplicity.  It  is  simple  in  the 
sense  that  it  carries  its  meaning  on  its  face  ;  we  can  easily 
perceive  the  idea  it  is  intended  to  embody.  There  is 
comparatively  little  put  into  an  early  picture ;  the 
attitudes  and  gestures  in  it  express  very  obviously  what 
they  are  intended  to  express.  So  with  a  very  simple 
tune,  we  easily  catch  the  principle  on  which  it  is  put 
together.  Early  poetry,  too,  is  simple  ;  we  at  once  take 
in  the  situation.  In  the  same  way  we  speak  of  simple 
characters  ;  meaning  that  one  easily  understands  their 
acts,  and  sees  what  are  their  feelings  and  principles.  In 
contrast  to  this  we  say  that  the  more  civilization  we  have, 
the  more  complex  and  involved  docs  human  life  become. 
Our  art  might  appear  confused  to  an  early  artist,  but  the 
work  of  a  great  artist  of  later  times  is  not  really  confused  ; 
he  has  his  own  distinct  and  dominating  idea  as  well  as 
the  earlier  artist,  only  it  is  harder  to  express  and  harder 
to  interpret.  So  with  character ;  simplicity  in  the 
important  sense  (hies  not  vanish  from  life  as  time  goes 
on  ;  great  characters  preserve  their  concentration  and 
unity  of  purpose  ;  but  it  becomes  harder  to  interpret 
them.  Doubtless  also  in  later  times  every  great  work  of 
art  is  labyrinthine  and  we  have  to  find  the  clue  to  it ;  but 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       in 

there  is  a  great  difference  between  complexity  in  the  sense 
of  having  a  great  number  of  elements  combined  in  a 
harmony  which  it  is  hard  to  analyze,  and  complexity 
in  the  sense  of  confusion  and  absence  of  principle.  The 
great  question  about  a  work  of  art  is  whether  there  is 
a  clue  to  it,  whether  there  is  a  unity  in  it  or  not. 

It  is  obvious  that  Plato  thought  that  the  Athenians 
were  losing  their  simplicity  in  every  direction.  Not  that 
he  wanted  them  to  go  back  to  the  simplicity  of  primitive 
times.  What  he  wanted  was  that  there  should  be  reality 
in  them  ;  that  they  should  not  become,  as  they  seemed 
to  him  to  be  becoming,  a  nation  of  actors,  but  should 
assume  genuine  characters.  Athens,  as  he  describes  it  to 
us,  is  becoming  like  a  theatre1.  The  arts,  too,  are  afflicted 
with  the  same  disease,  and  foster  it ;  they  are  complicated 
in  the  sense  of  being  confused  ;  they  lack  principle,  and 
admit  everything  without  discrimination.  The  under- 
lying idea  is  true  enough  ;  great  art,  like  great  character, 
is  doubtless  simple  in  the  sense  of  being  harmonious. 
But  we  feel  that  in  working  out  his  idea  Plato  is  led  to 
advocate  things  which  are  really  retrograde,  things  which 
would  have  the  effect  of  arresting  the  development  of  art 
and  of  civilization  generally ;  at  moments  indeed  he 
appears  to  be  doing  away  with  art  altogether.  This  is 
because  he  has  not  been  true  to  his  own  principles,  but 
has  allowed  his  view  to  be  narrowed  by  fixing  his  atten- 
tion too  much  on  certain  particular  facts  which  he  saw  or 
thought  he  saw  close  to  him.  We  find  the  same  thing 
later  on  in  his  treatment  of  property  and  the  family. 
Thus,  while  there  is  nothing  in  his  principles  which  is 
derogatory  to  art  or  which  need  limit  its  scope,  yet  in  his 
particular  applications  of  them  he  does  limit  it.     To  us, 

1  See  again  VIII.  561  c  to  E. 


ii2         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    'REPUBLIC 

who  are  interested  first  in  his  principles,  he  says,  Let  all 
art  express  something,  and  let  it  be  something  worth 
expressing ;  do  not  let  it  be  meaningless,  or  cater  simply 
to  the  morbid  fancies  of  a  mob  and  to  its  desire  for 
excitement.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  probably  seemed 
to  his  contemporaries  that  he  was  setting  aside  a  great 
part  of  the  most  valuable  productions  of  the  age.  We 
find  something  of  the  same  combination  in  Mr.  Ruskin. 

In  a  very  condensed  passage  (400  E  to  402  c)  Plato 
proceeds  to  extend  his  conception  of  the  educational 
power  of  art  to  the  whole  field  of  art.  Of  the  arts  which 
he  now  enumerates  he  makes  no  detailed  criticism. 
Accordingly  we  here  pass  entirely  from  the  polemical 
side  of  his  writing  to  his  positive  theory  of  the  ethical 
effect  of  art ;  this,  so  far  from  reducing  the  function  of 
art  to  a  minimum,  is  at  once  as  liberal,  and  as  high  in 
the  aim  that  it  sets,  as  anything  that  could  be  said 
on  the  subject.  It  really  contains  the  pith  of  what  there 
is  to  be  said  about  it. 

He  first  tells  us  that  in  painting  and  sculpture,  in 
weaving,  embroidery,  the  making  of  pottery  and  furniture, 
in  architecture,  and  beyond  these  in  the  whole  of  organic 
nature,  in  fact  wherever  there  is  sensible  form,  there  is 
the  capacity  for  beauty  or  ugliness,  and  that  beauty  or 
ugliness  both  of  figure  and  of  sound  is  associated  with 
what  is  beautiful  or  ugly  in  character.  He  goes  on  to 
describe  the  effect  that  might  be  produced  upon  the  soul 
if,  as  it  grew  up,  it  was  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of 
beauty.  We  must  not  suppose  that  he  thinks  the  world 
can  be  reformed  by  art  alone,  but  he  docs  ascribe  to  it 
a  function,  among  other  factors  in  human  life,  more 
important  than  perhaps  any  other  philosopher  has 
ascribed  to  it. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE      113 

What  was  it  that  he  thought  art  could  do  ?  Phrases 
about  the  '  moral '  influence  of  art  are  apt  to  make  us 
think  of  art  that  expressly  illustrates  moral  principles,  of 
didactic  poetry  or  pictures  ;  but  there  is  no  idea  of  this 
here.  Throughout  his  treatment  of  education,  here  and 
further  on,  there  is  present  the  general  idea  of  the  soul  as 
having  certain  powers  or  tendencies  which  may  be  called 
out  (not  created)  by  its  environment.  Among  the  media 
through  which  these  tendencies  may  be  brought  out  are 
two  most  important  ones,  seeing  and  hearing,  through 
which  the  soul  comes  in  contact  with  the  exterior  world. 
It  is  through  them,  in  the  first  instance,  that  the 
soul  acquires  knowledge,  or  in  other  words  is  brought 
into  conformity  with  the  truth  of  the  world  outside  it. 
Amongst  other  aspects  of  that  truth,  the  soul  is  through 
eye  and  ear  brought  into  contact  with  the  beauty  of  the 
world.  For  in  Plato's  mind  the  world  as  a  whole  is 
beautiful.  There  is  reason  in  the  woj^d,,  which  makes 
it  intelligible,  and  the  reason  in  the  world  shows  itself 
also  in  the_aspect  of_beauty.  So  in  the  Timaeus l,  Plato 
says  that  the  great  value  of  sight  an^Mheaxuig  is  that 
through  them  the  soul  may  understand  the  visible  and 
audible  rhythm  and  harmony  of  the  world  ;  the  great 
type  of  rhythm  and  harmony  was  the  movements  of  the 
stars ;  in  them  the  Greeks  saw,  so  to  say,  the  harmonious 
movement  of  reason.  The  function  of  the  artist,  then,  is 
to  show  us  the  beauty  of  the  world.  We  must,  says 
Plato  (401  c),  look  for  craftsmen  who  have  the  genius  to 
track  out  beauty  and  grace  wherever  they  are  to  be  found  ; 
they  are  to  show  it  to  those  who  have  not  the  eye  to  see 
it  or  the  ear  to  hear  it  in  the  world  for  themselves.  He 
regards  rhythm  as  rational  movement ;  it  is  movement 

1    47  A  to  E. 

VOL.  II.  I 


ii4         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

arranged  upon  a  certain  principle  ;  beautiful  form,  simi- 
larly, is  form  arranged  upon  a  certain  principle.  In  all 
products  of  art  (400  D  sq.)  there  is  goodness  or  badness 
of  rhythm  (evpvdpLia  and  appvdpiia)  or  of  harmony  (evap- 
jxon-TLa  and  avapp.oaTia)  or  of  form  [evcryjip-oavvt]  and 
a(ryjip.o(Tv iri),  and  right  rhythm  or  right  form  is  akin  on 
the  one  hand  to  the  reason,  the  rhythm  and  harmony, 
which  is  to  be  traced  in  the  world  as  a  whole,  and  akin 
on  the  other  hand  to  what  is  right  and  rational  in 
human  character.  This  is  the  real  relation  between  art 
and  character  or  morality  l. 

In  what  definite  way,  then,  is  the  character  affected 
by  artistic  surroundings?  Plato  gives  two  descriptions 
of  the  way  in  which  they  influence  the  soul;  one  de- 
scribes what  we  should  distinguish  as  the  more  moral, 
and  the  other  what  we  should  distinguish  as  the  more 
intellectual  influence  of  art,  but  they  are  not  different 
in  his  view.  He  tells  us  (401  D)  that  the  soul  appro- 
priates to  itself  the  characteristics  of  rhythm,  harmony, 
and  shapeliness.  He  would  no  doubt  say  that  it  shows 
this  in  the  actual  movements  of  the  body,  in  speech 
and  gesture  and  bearing,  for  there  are  certain  modes 
of  movement  which  are  expressive  of  moral  or  spiritual 
qualities2,  and  the  fact  that  they  are  recognized  as  thus 
expressive  shows  that  there  is  an  association  between 
thej|ense_of  rhythm  and  of  form  and  the  sense  of  what  is 
rightjn  character.  But  his  view  of  the  influence  of  art 
is  best  summed  up  in  the  metaphor  of  learning  to  read 

1  For  the  association  in  Plato  of  the  highest  moral  state  with  the 
power  of  entering  into  the  meaning  of  the  world,  sec  Section  X,  pages 
325  to  229. 

See  399  v.  and  400  it.  Throughout  the  discussion  of  musical  rhythm, 
it  is  manifest  that  hi  regards  it  as  based  upon  the  movements  of  march- 
ing and  dancing. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       ti5 

the  world  (402  A).  He  tells  us  that  we  have  got  to  learn 
to  read  the  world  about  us  with  a  view  to  understand- 
ing what  is  good.  The  world  as  it  first  presents  itself  to 
our  observation  contains  both  what  we  call  real  objects, 
living  men  and  women  for  instance,  and  'images' or 
reflexions  of  real  objects  in  the  various  reflecting  media 
of  words,  music,  colour,  and  the  rest  of  the  media  of  art. 
The  problem  is  to  learn  to  read  this  world.  If  we  are 
able  to  read  the  real  world  we  must  also  be  able  to  read 
the  reflexions  ;  to  be  /xovo-iko?,  to  have  the  real  eye  for 
beauty,  is  to  be  able  to  read  both  the  real  world  and  the 
reflected  world  of  art.  and  to  discern  self-control  and 
manliness  and  liberality  and  all  other  good  qualities  and 
their  opposites  wherever  they  occur.  It  is  possible  to 
learn  from  what  we  call  little  things  as  well  as  from 
great,  and  in  learning  to  recognize  and  to  value  the 
reflexion  of  good  qualities  in  art  we  necessarily  learn  also 
to  recognize  and  to  value  them  in  their  more  important 
expression  in  real  life. 

We  must  notice  further  that  thus  learning  to  read 
the  sensible  world,  or  the  world  as  it  presents  itself  to 
ordinary  experience,  is  a  preparation  for  learning  to  read 
the  world  in  another  way.  A  man  who  has  been 
educated  thus  will  have  an  instinctive  sense  of  what  is 
beautiful  and  what  is  ugly,  and  will  love  the  one  and 
hate  the  other,  before  he  is  able  to  frame  in  his  mind 
a  reason  for  loving  or  hating  them.  But  when  reason 
comes,  a  man  so  nurtured  will  recognize  it  and  welcome 
it  from  natural  kinship  to  it,  that  is  to  say,  because 
his  own  feelings  are  already  in  accord  with  it.  Plato 
conceived  that  there  was  a  real  continuity  between  the 
education  of  art  and  the  education  of  science  and  philo- 
sophy, which  he  afterwards  requires  should  follow  it  up. 

I  2 


n6         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

In  childhood  the  soul  of  man  is  completely  subject  to 
the  senses,  its  perceptions  are  all  disordered.     Gradually 
it  frees  itself  from  the  tumultuous  influences  of  sense, 
and  establishes  order  and  connexion  in  what  it  perceives 
and  thinks.     The  great  agents  by  which  this  process  can 
be  helped  are,  first,  the  education  in  fxowi/c?/,  and,  secondly, 
the  education  in  science  and  philosophy.     In  both  Plato 
would    say    there    was    reason    (\6yos) !  ;    in    its    earlier,    *N 
sensible  form   it  shows  itself  as  rhythm,  harmony,  and 
shape;  in  its  later,  it  shows  itself  as  principles  or  laws.S. 
which  are  apprehended  by  the  intelligence  (understood,  / 
not  seen  or  heard  or  felt). 

Thus  the  education  of  /xotm/a;  is  the  education  of  eye 
and  ear  in  the  widest  sense ;  it  is  to  be  accomplished  by 
presenting  to  the  eye  and  ear  good  works,  which  will 
interpret  to  the  soul  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  enable 
it  to  find  it  for  itself.  The  artist,  by  creating  for  the 
soul  a  sort  of  atmosphere  of  beauty  which  becomes 
familiar  to  it.  will  develop  in  it  the  power  of  recognizing 
what  is  beautiful  in  widely  different  forms,  and  of  making 
that  beaut\-  its  own. 

It  is  curious  that  Plato  seems  to  attribute  much  more 
educational  influence  to  music  proper  than  to  sculpture. 
We  think  of  the  Greeks  as  a  nation  of  sculptors,  and  we 
do  not  think  of  them  as  a  nation  of  musicians  :  we  might 
therefore  have  expected  him  to  attack  the  idolatry  of 
form  in  the  same  way  in  which  he  attacks  the  idolatry 
of  words '-'.  Rut  sculpture  is  only  alluded  to  in  a  list 
of  many  arts,  and   then   not  expressly   named 8.     It   is 

'  In  4or  D  we  hav<  the  phrase  koAuv  \6yos,  i.e.  reason  in  the  form 
•  ■i  i»  auty. 

'-'   See  Section  XI,  page  344,  and  Section  XV. 

:'  401  A,  where  he  speaks  of  '  painting  and  all  work  of  that  kind.' 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       117 

a  justifiable  inference  that  the  existence  of  great  sculpture 
in  Greece  was  not  so  important  an  educational  influence 
as  we  suppose.  On  the  other  hand  the  Greeks  were 
extremely  susceptible  to  words,  and,  further,  they  must 
have  been  especially  susceptible  to  rhythmical  words  ; 
and  so  Plato  speaks  of  music  (rhythm  and  harmony), 
which  he  has  treated  throughout  as  the  accompaniment 
of  words,  as  having  the  most  penetrating  influence  on 
the  soul.  Aristotle  speaks  of  music  in  a  similar  way  in 
the  Politics,  and  tells  us  that  the  influence  of  the  plastic 
arts  is  comparatively  slight l. 

The  discussion  of  iaovo-lkj']  concludes  with  the  considera- 
tion of  beauty  of  human  form  (402  D  to  403  c).  The 
man  on  whom  this  education  has  had  its  due  effect,  who 
is  really  iaovctikos,  and  who  therefore  has  the  keenest 
perception  of  beauty  everywhere,  will  necessarily  value 
beauty  of  soul  far  more  than  beauty  of  body.  Physical 
beauty  which  is  not  the  expression  of  a  lovable  soul 
will  not  move  him.  Moreover,  Plato  tells  us,  there  is 
no  fellowship  possible  between  this  sense  of  beauty  and 
the  madness  of  animal  passion.  Excessive  passion,  he 
says,  like  excessive  pain,  puts  a  man  beside  himself; 
he  considers  that  there  is  a  real  affinity  between  madness 
and  any  passion  which  possesses  a  man  for  the  time 
being  'z.  Under  the  influence  of  any  passion  so  strong 
the  perceptive  power  is  almost  extinguished  ;  nobody 
trusts  the  judgment  of  a  person  under  the  influence  of 
absorbing  jealousy  or  fear  or  any  other  passion  ;  and 
so,  Plato  says,  the  perception  of  beauty  is  incompatible 
with  excessive  passion.  This  is  empirically  true :  it  has 
been   observed   about   poets   that  they  have   not  often 

1  Politics,  1340  A,  28  sq. 

2  See  the  whole  passage,  IX.  5-71  A  to  573  C,  and  cf.  329  c  and  577  D. 


n8         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    'REPUBLIC 

written  under  the  immediate  influence  of  violent  emotions, 
but  usually  afterwards  ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  deeper  is  the  sense  of  beauty,  the  less  it  is  compatible 
with  simple  animal  passion,  and  vice  versa  1. 

In  this  passage  we  find  that  the  word  iaouo-lkos  has 
acquired  an  extended  and  higher  sense  ;  it  means  a  man 
to  whom  life  itself  is  the  highest  art ;  and  a  little  later 
we  find  that  the  real  ^ovctlkos  is  the  man  who  can 
harmonize  his  own  life,  putting  iaovo-lki]  itself  in  its  right 
place  in  his  life  in  relation  to  '  gymnastic  '  and  to  other 
elements  in  life 2.  The  use  of  this  and  other  phrases 
derived  from  the  arts  to  describe  morality,  may  incline 
one  to  say  that  Greek  morality  was  aesthetic  morality  ; 
but  the  truth  is  not  that  Plato  takes  moral  distinctions 
to  be,  as  we  should  say,  only  aesthetic  distinctions,  but 
that  he  gives  '  beauty,'  'harmony,'  '  rhythm,'  and  similar 
words  a  wider  sense  than  we  do. 


NOTE   ON   GREEK   MUSIC. 

The  Greek  theory  of  music  took  account  of  poetry,  tune,  and 
dancing  as  elements  in  one  artistic  product  (fxeXos).  Aristoxenus, 
a  pupil  of  Aristotle's,  is  the  greatest  authority  upon  it.  It  fell 
under  the  heads  of  apfiaviiai  and  fwOfwcij,  the  latter  of  which  at 
first  included  and  was  afterwards  distinguished  from  ptTpiKr]. 
'  Appovia  does  not  mean  harmony  in  the  sense  of  the  simultaneous 
sounding  of  two  or  more  tones  oi'  different  pitch,  but  a  scale, 
a  certain  sequence  of  tones  of  different  pitch.  'Appovucfi  means 
that  branch  of  the  theory  of  music  which  deals  with  the  interval 
between  tones  and  their  arrangement  in  what  we  call  scales  or 

'   With  this  whole  passage  compare  Symposium,  ^09  B  to  aia  C. 
I  r u  a  ;   cf.  IX.  591   I),  ;m<]  Lac/us,    188  D. 

:  (  Iii  this  Note  several  additions  have  been  made  to  the  original,  im- 
portant works  on  Greek  music  having  been  published  since  the  lecture 
was  given.  — Ed.  ] 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       119 

keys.  'Pv6p6s  is  etymologically  connected  with  words  which 
have  to  do  with  movement.  The  typical  form  of  rhythmical 
motion  is  dancing.  The  essence  of  rhythm  is  that  a  certain 
sequence  of  motions  or  sounds  is  measured,  according  to  time, 
into  portions  which  recur  upon  a  certain  principle.  'PvdpiKrj  is 
that  part  of  the  theory  of  music  into  which  time  enters.  MtrpiKr), 
or  the  theory  of  metre  (perpov),  is  the  theory  of  rhythm  in  its 
special  application  to  language. 

Plato  lays  it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle  that  rhythm 
and  harmony  are  to  follow  the  words.  This  shows  us  the  great 
difference  between  Greek  and  modern  music ;  the  former  grew 
up  as  an  accompaniment  to  words  or  dancing,  or  both.  It  was 
comparatively  late  that  music  began  to  develop  independently 
of  these,  and  Plato  looks  upon  this  independent  development  as 
a  wrong  development.  The  earlier  of  the  great  dramatists  not 
only  wrote  their  plays,  but  wrote  the  music  for  their  chorus. 
It  is  stated  that  Euripides  got  others  to  compose  the  music  for 
him,  and  that  this  was  made  a  reproach  to  him.  One  of 
Wagner's  leading  ideas  has  been  that  of  recurring  to  the 
principle  that  poet  and  musician  should  be  the  same. 

According  to  the  theory  that  has  been  received  till  lately, 
the  differences  between  the  various  appovUu,  or  '  modes,'  were 
analogous  to  the  difference  between  our  major  and  minor  keys. 
That  is  to  say,  the  places  in  which  intervals  of  tones  and  of 
semi-tones  occurred,  differed  in  different  modes.  But  whereas 
we  have  only  two  apfioviai  (supposing  this  to  be  the  sense  of 
the  word),  the  Greeks  had  seven,  one  for  each  note  of  the  scale. 
There  seem  to  have  been  originally  three  main  modes,  the 
Lydian,  the  Phrygian,  and  the  Dorian.  On  these  three  funda- 
mental modes  there  were  three  variations,  the  Hypo-Lydian, 
the  Hypo-Phrygian,  and  the  Hypo-Dorian  (In a-  in  this  com- 
bination meaning  lower  in  pitch).  To  these  must  be  added  the 
Mixo- Lydian  \  According  to  the  received  theory  we  get  these 
seven  modes  by  playing  upon  the  white  notes  of  the  piano  as 

1  The  Ionian  mode  appears  to  have  been  the  same  as  the  Hypo- 
Phrygian,  and  the  Aeolian  the  same  as  the  Hypo-Dorian.  Plato 
mentions  also  a  mode  called  Syntono-Lydian,  which  is  believed  not 
to  have  been  identical  with  any  of  the  foregoing,  but  to  have  been 
akin  both  to  the  Lydian  and  the  Hypo-Lydian. 


i2o         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

follows :—  Hypo-Dorian  or  Aeolian,  A  to  A ;  Mixo-Lydian, 
B  to  B  ;  Lydian,  C  to  C  ;  Phrygian,  D  to  D  ;  Dorian,  E  to  E  ; 
Hypo-Lydian,  F  to  F  ;  Hypo-Phrygian  or  Ionian,  G  to  G1. 

There  is  however  another  theory,  according  to  which  there 
is  no  evidence  that  in  Plato's  time  the  modes,  or  at  any  rate  all 
seven  of  them,  differed  in  the  way  described  above,  and  the 
main  difference  between  modes  was  a  difference  of  pitch  (the 
difference  between  one  major  scale  and  another,  or  one  minor 
scale  and  another,  in  modern  music) 2. 

The  two  modes  which  Plato  would  leave  in  use  are  considered 
by  him  to  be  appropriate  to  two  sets  of  circumstances,  and  to 
have  a  tendency  to  stimulate  two  qualities  of  character,  courage 
and  self-control.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  differences 
between  the  modes,  the  Greeks  generally  attributed  to  each  of 
them  a  specific  character  which  made  it  suitable  for  particular 
kinds  of  poetry  and  music  3.  Modes  were  classified  as  :  those 
which  had  to  do  with  action,  and  had  a  stimulating  effect 
(nf)(iKTiK(u  upfjiovLai) ;  modes  which  stirred  emotion  (fudnva-marinai, 
nadrjTiKai,  6prjva8t  is) ;  and  modes  which  affected  character, 
especially  by  producing  a  calming  effect  (!]6iKai).  Naturally, 
though  there  was  a  certain  traditional  agreement  as  to  the 
character  of  these  modes,  different  writers  had  different  opinions 
upon  them.  The  Dorian  mode  was  considered  to  be  the  Greek 
mode  par  excellence.  Among  the  epithets  applied  to  this  mode 
are  av8pwbt]s  (manly),  p.(ya\oTTpcrrT)s  (stately),  ardaipos  (steady), 
(khvus  (dignified),  o-cpobpas  (forcible),  and  <TKvdpam6s  (sombre). 
The  Phrygian  mode  is  called  opyiaoTinos  (having  to  do  with 
religious  orgies),  n-aA}ruc<fc  (expressing  deep  feeling),  tvdovo-iaoriKi'is 
(expressing  violent  religious  emotions).     The  Lydian  is  called 

1  [This  must  not  be  taken  as  implying  that  the  keynote  of  the  mode  was 
in  each  case  the  note  here  mentioned. — Ed.] 

1  [For  the  former  of  these  two  views  see  Westphal's  works  and 
Gevaert's  Histoire  et  Theorie  de  la  Musique  de  FAntiquite.  Fur  the  latter 
view  see  Monro's  Modes  of  Ancient  Greek  Music:  sec  also  review  of  this 
by  II.  Stuart  Jones  in  the  Classical  Review  for  Dec.  1894,  and  the  reply 
to  it  in  the  Classical  Rt  vu  W  for  Feb.  1895.  See  also  Monro's  article  in  the 
Dictionary  of Antiquities  for  an  outline  of  all  1 1 1  *  -  principal  theories. — Ed.] 

:  See  Aristotle,  Politics,  1340  A  (especially  line  40  sq.),  and  1341  B, 
9  sqq. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       121 

yXvKv*  (sweet)  and  notniXos  (varied) ;  it  is  also  said  to  be  appro- 
priate to  the  young.  If  the  accepted  theory  about  the  modes  is 
correct,  both  Plato's  view  of  the  Dorian  mode  and  Aristotle's 
illustrate  the  fact  that  the  present  associations  of  the  minor  key 
are  due  to  a  late  development  of  musical  sentiment.  In  the 
early  Christian  Church  grandness  and  sternness  were  associated 
with  it;  and  early  ecclesiastical  music  inherited  the  character- 
istics of  Greek  music. 

Upon  the  subject  of  rhythm  the  Greek  writers  are  still 
valuable.  The  Greeks  had  an  extraordinary  sense  of  rhythm, 
and  expressed  the  true  principles  of  it  in  a  final  way.  In  a 
general  sense  all  spoken  language  is  rhythmical ;  every  one 
observes  unconsciously  a  certain  rhythm.  This  becomes  rhythm 
proper  when  treated  artistically  and  brought  under  laws.  For 
this  purpose  we  require  units  of  measurement,  the  units  in  music 
being  notes  sounded  for  a  certain  time.  These  units  are  com- 
bined in  music  into  bars,  in  verse  into  feet ;  and  a  dactyl  or  an 
iambus,  or  any  other  foot  in  metre,  is  best  thought  of  as  the 
equivalent  to  a  bar  in  music.  Each  bar  in  music  and  each  foot 
in  metre  is  made  into  a  unity  by  having  a  certain  accent  or 
stress  on  one  of  its  elements  (the  use  of  accent  in  metre  being 
a  development  of  the  use  of  accent  in  speech,  where  stress  is 
laid  on  a  certain  part  of  every  non-monosyllabic  word,  and 
again  on  a  certain  part  of  every  sentence).  Poetry  then  is 
rhythmical  because  it  is  divided  into  feet  of  a  certain  length, 
and  there  is  a  certain  stress  recurring  in  each  foot.  Here  comes 
in  the  connexion  between  poetry  and  dancing.  In  dancing  the 
foot  is  put  down  with  a  certain  stress  at  equal  intervals  of  time 
— the  simplest  possible  illustration  of  this  kind  of  rhythm  being 
military  marching.  The  Greeks  called  the  stressed  part  of 
every  foot  of  metre  dean  or  Kara  xP'wosj  ar>d  the  unstressed  a/jo-is 
or  ava>  xpo"°s  ;  these  words  referring  to  the  putting  down  and 
taking  up  of  the  foot  in  marching  or  dancing.  So  (400  c) 
Damon,  the  philosophical  musician,  is  said  in  his  criticisms  of 
metre  to  have  in  mind  the  motion  of  the  foot  no  less  than  the 
rhythm  of  the  words.  Modern  writers  apply  the  words  arsis 
and  thesis  in  the  reverse  way,  meaning  by  arsis  the  raising, 
and  by  thesis  the  lowering  of  the  force  of  the  voice.  All  the 
metres  of  poetry  are  a  development  of  these  simple  principles. 


122         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

A  hexameter  line  is  a  larger  unity  composed  of  six  smaller 
unities  (feet),  each  of  which  can  be  resolved  into  four  beats, 
four  units  of  time,  which  are  the  ultimate  elements  of  the  metre. 
A  stanza  again  (e.  g.  the  Spenserian)  is  a  larger  and  somewhat 
more  complicated  unity,  divided  first  into  lines,  secondly  into 
feet,  and  lastly  into  beats.  In  Pindar  we  find  a  rhythmical 
system  still  more  subtle  and  complicated,  but  still  founded 
upon  the  same  principles. 

Just  as  different  modes  seemed  to  the  Greeks  appropriate  to 
different  subjects,  so  did  different  metres  or  times.  Plato  does 
not  say  definitely,  as  he  does  in  the  case  of  modes,  what  form 
of  rhythm  he  would  allow,  but  he  lays  down  the  principle  that 
rhythms  must  be  admitted  or  rejected  in  accordance  with  the 
character  they  express.  He  mentions  the  three  great  classes 
into  which  metres  were  divided.  To  understand  this  division 
we  must  remember  certain  facts.  Ancient  metre  is  based  upon 
quantity,  that  is  to  say  upon  the  length  of  time  which  is  taken 
in  uttering  a  given  syllable.  Modern  metre  is  based  upon 
accent,  stress  or  ictus,  that  is  the  increased  loudness  of  the  voice 
on  a  given  syllable.  There  is  quantity  in  modern  language,  for 
you  can  quite  well  distinguish  long  and  short  syllables,  and 
quantity  does  enter  into  metrical  effect ;  but  the  quantity  of 
a  syllable  and  the  amount  of  stress  upon  it  are  distinct  things  ; 
and  while  in  modern  languages  it  is  the  difference  of  stress  on 
different  words  and  syllables  which  is  most  noticeable  and  by 
which  metre  is  governed,  in  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  it  was 
quantity.  The  fundamental  principle  in  which  musical  rhythm 
and  metre  come  together  is  that  a  short  syllable  answers  to 
a  unit  of  time  in  music.  Remembering  this,  and  remembering 
that  the  Greeks  divided  every  foot  of  metre  and  every  bar  of 
music  into  two  by  distinguishing  0eVts  and  apms  (the  stressed 
part  and  the  unstressed),  we  shall  understand  the  following 
simple  classification  of  metres  or  times,  to  which  Plato  alludes. 
There  is  the  lurov  yivos  of  time,  our  four  time,  in  which  the 
stressed  and  unstressed  parts  arc  equal.  Of  this  the  dactyl 
and  the  anapaest  arc  t3'pcs ;  each  represents  a  bar  of  four  beats 
(quavers),  and  is  divisible  into  two  parts  of  two  beats  each,  of 
which  parts  one  is  stressed  and  the  other  unstressed.  There  is 
next  the  dnrXuainu  yivos  (our  three  time),  in  which  the  stressed 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       123 

part  is  to  the  unstressed  as  2  to  1.  The  iambus  and  trochee 
are  types  of  this.  There  is  lastly  the  q/uoAtoi/  yevos,  'one  and 
a  half  time  (our  five  time),  in  which  the  stressed  part  is  to  the 
unstressed  as  3  to  2.  Plato  does  not  give  instances  of  this,  but 
the  type  of  it  is  the  paeon.  Throughout  it  must  be  remembered 
that  a  short  syllable  answers  to  a  single  beat  of  the  music,  and 
that  a  long  syllable  equals  two  short. 

In  modern  musical  accompaniments  to  words,  the  composer 
does  what  he  likes  with  the  metre  of  the  words ;  he  subordinates 
it  to  his  own  rhythm,  and  does  not  make  every  short  syllable 
correspond  to  a  beat.  But  the  earlier  we  go  back  the  more  we 
find  that  the  time  of  the  tune  corresponds  to  the  natural  time 
of  the  words.  This  was  not  universally  the  case  in  Greece,  as 
Plato  thought  that  it  should  have  been.  The  parody  of  Euripides 
in  the  Frogs1  of  Aristophanes  makes  a  single  syllable  spread 
out  over  many  beats. 

Plato  requires  that  the  instrumentation  of  music  should  be  of 
a  simple  kind,  as  well  as  the  rhythm.  The  '  panharmonion ' 
which  he  would  exclude  is  a  stringed  instrument  on  which  all 
the  modes  could  be  played.  In  his  preference  of  stringed  to 
wind  instruments  he  is  following  traditional  Greek  feeling, 
which  associated  wind  instruments  with  excitement  and  emo- 
tional effects,  and  stringed  instruments  with  the  sense  of  form 
and  precision.  The  stringed  instruments  in  use  were  mainly 
varieties  of  the  harp,  and  not  like  the  modern  violin. 


5.   tymna2tikh  and  digression  on  law  and 
Medicine. 

It   remains  to  consider  'gymnastic,'   which  has  been  403  c  to 
said  to  mean  the  training  of  the  body,  but  in  discussing  4I2 
this  Plato  diverges  into  widely  different  subjects.     The 
order  of  his  thought  is  briefly  as  follows  : — (a)  The  prin- 
ciple which  he  lays  down  for  the  training  and  management 
of  the  body  is  the  same  that  he  has  laid  down  for  the  arts  ; 

1    1309  sq. 


124         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

it  is  simplicity.  Simplicity  of  life  leads  in  one  direction 
to  bodily  health,  and  in  another  to  sanity,  self-control, 
or  temperance  in  the  soul  (auxjypoavvi]).  The  one  is  to 
the  body  what  the  other  is  to  the  soul,  and  there  is 
a  close  connexion  between  them  (403  C  to  404  e). 
(b)  This  leads  to  the  consideration  side  by  side  of  two 
analogous  phenomena  of  Athenian  life,  legal  proceedings 
and  medicine,  of  which  the  former  had  always  been 
prominent,  and  the  latter  evidently  had  entered  upon 
a  new  development.  Constant  recourse  to  law  and 
to  medicine  are  evidences  of  the  same  fault  in  civiliza- 
tion, and  Plato  lays  down  corresponding  principles 
with  regard  to  each,  especially  contrasting  the  modern 
habit  of  valetudinarianism  with  the  simple  ways  of 
ancient  times  (404  E  to  410  b).  (c)  By  the  way,  he 
shows  a  difference  in  the  conditions  necessary  to  the 
training  of  a  good  doctor  and  of  a  good  judge,  which 
is  based  on  the  distinction  between  soul  and  body 
(408  c  to  409  e).  (d)  The  consideration  of  body  and 
soul  side  by  side  leads  him  finally  to  the  thought  that 
fj.oviri.Kri  and  yvuvacrTinij  are  both  really  means  of  influ- 
encing the  soul,  though  on  different  sides.  He  tells 
us  that  the  ideal  of  education  is  to  harmonize  the  two, 
so  as  to  produce  a  harmonious  character ;  and  he  points 
out  the  evils  of  a  one-sided  education  (410  B  to  41 2  b). 

(a)  Plato  considers  first  the  kind  of  physical  training 
that  is  fitted  to  produce  a  good  citizen  soldier.  He  finds 
in  vogue  an  elaborate  system  of  training  which  aims 
at  producing  professional  athletes,  and  which  seems 
to  strike  him  as  a  part  of  the  general  complexity  of 
modern  life.  lie  criticizes  it  on  the  ground  that  it  does 
not  produce  that  habit  of  body  which  befits  a  soldier. 
In  the  first  place  it  produces  a  sleepy  habit,  broken  only 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       125 

by  short  periods  of  great  and  abnormal  activity  ;  in  the 
second  place  it  produces  a  habit  of  body  which  cannot 
stand  changes  of  diet  and  climate  and  the  like.  This 
criticism  is  substantially  the  same  as  Aristotle's1.  In 
bodily  training  the  most  important  thing  is  simplicity 
of  diet.  Syracusan  dishes,  Sicilian  subtleties  of  flavour, 
Athenian  confectionery,  and  the  rest  of  the  luxuries  that 
were  introduced  into  the  state  when  it  passed  above  its 
most  elementary  stage 2.  are  condemned.  Here  Plato 
observes  the  close  connexion  between  health  in  the 
body  and  self-control  in  the  soul.  The  relation  he 
sees  between  them  consists  in  something  more  than  the 
fact  that  intemperance  produces  disease.  We  are  apt 
to  think  of  the  soul  as  something  which  is  inside  the 
body  as  if  in  a  box  ;  in  Plato,  we  have  to  remember, 
'  soul '  means  primarily  the  principle  of  unity  and  move- 
ment in  the  body  which  makes  it  an  organic  and  a  living 
whole. 

{b)  When  disease  in  the  body  and  '  intemperance ' 
(aKokaaia,  the  opposite  of  o-axppoavvij)  in  the  soul  abound, 
then  Law  and  Medicine  hold  their  heads  high.  Plato 
criticizes  the  recent  development  of  these,  as  he  has 
criticized  that  of  art.  He  tells  us  that  to  have  con- 
stantly to  go  to  law  is  a  sign  of  want  of  education 
(aircabevcria  K.a.1  aTtzipoKakia),  and  so  is  the  inability  to 
keep  oneself  in  health  without  the  doctor.  This  shows 
us  in  what  a  wide  sense  Plato  understands  education ; 
the  educated  man  is  the  man  who  knows  how  to  manage 
his  own  life  physically  and  morally.  He  writes  with 
great  animosity  about  the  growth  of  medicine,  regard- 
ing it  as  a  luxury  of  the  rich  who  can  afford  to  give 
up  their  work  for  the  sake  of  nursing  their  health.     If 

1  Politic*,  1338  n,  9  sq.  2  373  A. 


126         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

a  man  is  radically  diseased  and  cannot  go  about  the 
business  of  his  life,  he  had  better  die,  as  a  poor  man 
in  such  a  case  has  to,  and  doctors  ought  not  to  be 
allowed  to  keep  useless  folk  out  of  the  grave.  The 
general  idea  of  the  passage  is  that,  except  in  compara- 
tively rare  cases  of  accident  and  the  like,  a  man  ought 
to  be  able  to  keep  himself  in  health  without  the  aid 
of  doctors.  This  is  a  sound  enough  idea,  within  limits, 
but  no  doubt  Plato's  remarks  about  medicine  are  far  too 
sweeping.  The  craving  for  simplicity  in  life  leads  him 
to  a  good  deal  of  cruelty,  as  it  has  led  him  to  austerity 
in  regard  to  art.  To  many  of  his  contemporaries  his 
treatment  of  medicine  must  have  appeared  altogether 
retrograde,  and  as  a  mere  refusal  to  avail  himself  of 
the  advance  of  civilization.  This  is  one  of  the  cases 
where  the  spirit  of  the  reformer,  of  which  Plato  had 
a  good  deal  in  him,  does  not  harmonize  with  the  philo- 
sophic temper,  and  where  impatience  of  what  he  thinks 
abuses  vitiates  his  theory.  The  principle  that  the  man 
who  can  be  of  no  use  had  better  be  let  die  (as  the  incur- 
able criminal  ought  to  be  put  to  death)  would  of  course 
be  an  extremely  dangerous  one  to  act  upon  at  all.  No 
means  have  yet  appeared  by  which  it  could  be  carried 
out  as  it  was  intended  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  we  rightly 
feel  that  it  rests  with  people  themselves  to  decide  whether 
they  are  justified  in  keeping  themselves  alive  when  their 
usefulness  is  gone.  We  rightly  feel,  too,  that  the  existence 
of  the  sick  and  incurable  calls  out  a  great  deal  of  virtue 
which  would  otherwise  be  latent. 

(c)  Incidentally  Plato  asks  whether  great  experience 
of  bodily  disease  in  the  one  case,  and  of  vice  and  crime 
in  the  other,  is  not  necessary  to  make  a  good  doctor 
and   a  good  judge?     He   answers   that  the  two   cases 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN  EARLY  LIFE       127 

are  different.  The  good  doctor  must  not  only  have 
scientific  knowledge  (eTrio-n/p?)  of  disease,  but  wide 
experience  (f^-nupia)  of  it  ;  and  it  is  best  that  he 
should  have  experienced  ill  health  in  his  own  person, 
for  his  own  physical  weakness  will  not  affect  his  soul, 
the  organ  by  which  he  acts  on  others.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  judge,  to  have  experienced  the  mental  disease 
of  vice  in  his  own  person  does  not  mean  that  the 
soul,  the  organ  with  which  he  acts  upon  others,  is  im- 
paired. He  goes  on  to  say  that  the  apparent  cleverness 
of  a  man  who  has  had  much  personal  familiarity  with 
wrongdoing  is  limited  to  cases  where  he  has  to  deal  with 
persons  of  similar  character  and  experience  to  his  own ; 
he  judges  only  by  the  examples  (■napaodyp.a.Ta)  which 
have  come  within  his  own  experience,  and  will  be  at 
a  loss  when  he  has  to  judge  of  the  motives  and  conduct 
of  a  different  sort  of  people.  This  is  what  distinguishes 
empirical  knowledge,  which  is  confined  within  the  limits 
of  a  certain  number  of  experiences,  from  knowledge 
which  is  based  on  principles  (kin<rTr}p,-i]).  The  application 
of  this  is  that,  in  order  to  get  real  knowledge  of  the  good 
and  evil  in  human  nature,  the  soul  must  be  kept  healthy 
from  the  first.  The  man  who  has  grown  up  amid  healthy 
surroundings  and  with  a  healthy  mind,  will  come  to 
understand  the  evil  which  he  sees  in  other  people  com- 
paratively late,  but  will  then  understand  it  better  than 
the  man  who  begins  by  personal  experience  of  evil. 
Plato  is  not  to  be  supposed  to  mean  that  an  innocent 
simpleton  is  a  better  judge  of  character  than  a  man  who 
has  knocked  about  the  world  ;  the  issue  he  raises  is  this : 
Supposing  people  of  equal  ability,  is  it  better  for  this 
purpose  that  they  should  have  had  a  large  amount  of 
evil  experience,  or  that  they  should  have  kept  their  souls 


128         LECTURES    ON    PLATO?S    'REPUBLIC' 

free  from  evil,  and  have  studied  the  evil  in  the  world 
late  in  life  when  their  characters  were  formed  ?  It  is 
best,  Plato  decides,  if  you  wish  to  have  men  trained 
for  the  function  of  judges,  that  you  should  aim  at 
developing  what  is  good  in  them  morally  and  intel- 
lectually to  the  highest  pitch,  and  then  trust  to  their 
insight.  What  this  implies  is  that  no  line  can  be 
drawn  between  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  nature ; 
what  is  called  knowledge  is  not  an  entirely  separate  part 
of  the  mind  unaffected  by  other  parts,  and  a  man  cannot 
be  affected  by  moral  evil  in  one  part  of  his  soul  and 
retain  intellectual  insight  into  its  nature  with  another 
part1.  We  are  sometimes  inclined  to  suppose  that 
a  man  can  keep  his  intellectual  judgment  apart  from 
his  personal  character :  to  this  Plato  emphatically  says 
no :  if  the  character  is  affected  the  organ  of  judgment 
is  affected,  because  the  soul  is  one  and  continuous. 
We  shall  find  in  Books  VI  and  VII.  that  his  whole 
conception  of  the  philosopher  and  of  philosophic  educa- 
tion is  based  on  the  close  relation  which  he  asserts 
to  exist  between  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  powers 
of  the  soul. 

It  may  be  asked  how  far  experience  bears  out  Plato's 
theory  of  the  possibility  of  understanding  things  in 
human  nature  of  which  one's  own  experience  is  slight. 
With  average  men  it  would  be  difficult  to  show  that 
it  is  true ;  but  it  proves  true  if  you  take  only  the 
greatest  men  and  those  who  have  shown  the  greatest 
knowledge  of,  and  insight  into,  human  nature.  Men 
of  genius  get  their  knowledge  of  the  world  nobody 
knows  how  ;  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  cannot  have 
had    personal    experience    of   more    than    a    fraction    of 

1  Cf.  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  VI.  xii.  10. 


EDUCATION  OF  RULERS  IN   EARLY  LIFE       129 

what  he  wrote  about.  In  fact,  genius  is  the  power 
of  getting  knowledge  with  the  least  possible  experience, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  differences  between  men  is  in 
the  amount  of  experience  they  need  of  a  thing  in  order 
to  understand  it1.  There  are  some  people,  especially 
women,  who  seem  able  to  understand  other  people's 
characters  by  instinct.  The  greatest  of  all  instances 
of  such  a  power  is  the  instance  of  Christ,  of  whom 
it  is  said  that  he  understood  all  human  nature  without 
having  personal  experience  of  evil  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
But  the  chief  psychological  question  which  this  passage 
raises  is  how  far  one  part  of  one's  nature  can  act  inde- 
pendently of  others,  how  far  intellectual  judgment  can 
act  apart  from  character.  This  is  a  matter  in  which 
men  vary  very  much,  some  being  able  to  isolate  the 
parts  of  their  mind  much  more  than  others. 

(d)  Returning  to  /xouo-ik?;,  Plato  makes  a  final  state- 
ment as  to  its  relation  to  yv^vaariKri.  One  is  said  to 
deal  with  the  soul  and  the  other  with  the  body,  but 
both  really  have  to  do  with  the  soul ;  for  misdirection 
or  neglect  of  physical  training  has  a  direct  influence  on 
character,  no  less  than  the  misdirection  or  neglect  of 
culture.  Both  are  required  to  develop  the  elements  in 
the  soul  which  are  essential  to  a  good  Guardian.  The 
training  of  gymnastic  acts  upon  '  spirit ' ;  this  when 
rightly  trained  shows  itself  in  courage  and  manliness ; 
if  trained  to  the  neglect  of  the  rest  of  the  soul,  it 
degenerates  into  hardness  and  brutality.  The  training 
of  literature  and  the  arts  affects  the  philosophic  element, 
the  gentle  element  in  man  which  is  susceptible  to 
attraction.  This  if  rightly  developed  makes  a  man 
temperate  or  self-controlled  ;  if  over  developed  it  makes 

1  Cf.  Section  XIV.  p.  321. 
VOL.  II.  K 


130  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

him  soft,  effeminate,  morbidly  susceptible,  unstable  and 
weak  in  character.  The  problem  of  education  is  to 
harmonize  these  two  sides  of  character,  and  he  who 
best  deserves  the  name  of  musician  (ixovctlkos)  is  the  man 
who  can  thus  tune  human  nature  *. 

1  Cf.  the  description  of  the  art  of  the  statesman  in  Politicus,  305  e 
to  end. 


VI.    PRINCIPLES    OF   GOVERNMENT 
IN   THE    IDEAL   STATE 

[Republic,  III.  412  b  to  IV.  427  E.] 

PLATO  has  now  finished  his  outline  of  the  education 
of  the  rulers  up  to  the  age  (about  twenty,  as  we  after- 
wards learn)  at  which  a  man  enters  public  life.  The 
Republic  is  a  representation  of  the  gradual  development 
of  the  soul  in  society  ;  and  the  subject  we  have  before 
us  in  the  section  which  now  follows,  and  in  which  an 
outline  is  given  of  the  institutions  of  the  ideal  state, 
is  that  stage  of  the  growth  of  the  soul  in  which  the 
young  citizen  becomes  aware  for  the  first  time  of  his 
true  position  in,  and  his  duty  to,  the  community.  It  is 
introduced  by  the  question,  Upon  what  principle  are  we 
to  select,  from  among  those  whose  training  has  been 
described,  those  who  are  to  be  in  public  authority,  and 
whom  the  others  will  have  to  obey  ? 

This  question  at  once  indicates  the  leading  fact  about 
this  new  stage  in  the  development  of  the  soul :  when 
it  first  enters  upon  practical  life  it  will  have  to  recognize 
its  subordination  to  authority,  and  to  act  upon  principles 
which  it  accepts  from  authority.     The  question  brings 

K  a 


.}I4  B. 


132         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

out  also  a  fundamental  fact  about  the  state,  which  will 
have  to  be  considered  a  good  deal  in  the  course  of  the 
discussion  ;  there  must  be  in  the  community  authorities 
who  impose  boyixara,  beliefs  or  principles,  upon  those  in 
subordination. 

412B  to  How  the  governing  class  are  to  be  constituted  depends 

upon  the  question  what  should  be  the  spirit  of  those  who 
are  to  rule  the  state.  Their  function  is  to  be  Guardians 
((f)vkaK€s)  of  the  state,  and  that  man  will  guard  the  state 
best  who  most  fully  believes  that  the  interests  of  the  state 
are  identical  with  his  own.  This,  then,  is  the  test  that 
we  must  use  to  discover  whether  those  whom  we  have 
been  training  will  become  fit  to  rule ;  we  must  observe 
whether  under  all  circumstances  they  hold  fast  the  belief 
that  the  thing  that  is  best  for  the  community  is  the  thing 
for  them  to  do.  This  is  to  be  their  boyfia,  something, 
that  is  to  say,  which  he  who  holds  it  accepts  without 
understanding  all  the  grounds  of  it ;  for  the  attitude 
of  a  man  entering  public  life  must  be  that  of  accepting 
certain  principles  from  others.  We  have  got  to  discover 
whether  they  are  '  safe  guardians  of  this  creed,'  and  that 
means  whether  they  can  resist  the  influences  which  are 
calculated  to  make  them  give  it  up.  Such  a  belief  may 
be  '  stolen '  from  us,  that  is,  given  up  either  in  the  lapse 
of  time  from  intellectual  indolence,  or  because  some  one 
persuades  us  out  of  it.  Or  it  may  be  '  forced'  out  of  us 
by  suffering  or  painful  toil.  Or  it  may  be  'juggled'  out 
of  us  by  pleasure  or  fear — f juggled,'  because  both 
these  feelings  affect  us  by  producing  illusion,  or  making 
us  see  things  in  a  false  light.  These,  therefore,  arc 
the  influences  by  which  those  whom  we  arc  educat- 
ing will  have  to  be  tested  at  all  stages  of  their  career. 
The    test   will   show   whether  they  are  good  guardians 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  133 

of  themselves  and  of  the  '  music '  which  they  have 
learned,  whether  the  rhythm  and  harmony  have  become 
a  law  to  them.  Those  who  stand  the  test  best  must  be 
made  to  rule.  This  in  outline  (tvttu>)  is  the  principle 
upon  which  those  in  authority  are  to  be  chosen — the 
outline  will  be  filled  in  later1.  Those  who  have  stood 
the  tests  well  to  the  end  will,  when  they  are  older,  be 
Guardians  in  the  full  sense  ($vAaKe?  TravreXels)  ;  the 
younger  members  of  the  service  will  be  'Auxiliaries' 
(eTTLKovpoi)  to  the  Guardians,  and  will  carry  out  the 
principles  they  lay  down  (8o'y/xara). 

In  this  passage  two  simple  principles  are  put  before 
us  in  combination  with  a  proposal  of  certain  machinery 
for  carrying  them  out,  which  is  strange  to  us.  On  the 
one  hand  we  find  the  principles,  first,  that  a  man  will 
serve  the  community  well  in  proportion  as  he  is  ready 
to  devote  himself  and  give  up  his  own  interests  to  it, 
and  secondly,  that  men  should  be  promoted  in  the  public 
service  in  proportion  as  they  show  that  they  can  bear 
responsibility.  On  the  other  hand  we  find  the  idea 
of  a  system  by  which  the  state  can  continue  the  educa- 
tion of  childhood  into  later  life,  and  test  its  progress 
at  each  stage.  Such  an  idea,  which  is  repugnant  to 
modern  ideas  generally,  is  perhaps  particularly  so  to  the 
English  mind.  Something  analogous  to  what  Plato 
proposes  exists  in  the  system  of  the  Jesuits. 

The  young  citizen  of  the  upper  class  has  now  been  414  b  te 
placed  in  his  proper  position,  under  authority.  The 
question  next  asked  is  how  authority  is  to  be  established 
in,  and  made  acceptable  to,  the  community  at  large. 
The  two  essential  things  which  have  to  be  maintained 
are  the  unity  of  the  whole  society,  and  the  distinction 

1  See  503  sqq. 


134  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of  classes,  that  is  of  social  functions,  within  it.  What 
will  be  the  basis  upon  which  patriotism  (the  sense  of 
belonging  to  a  community)  and  submission  to  authority 
will  rest  in  the  minds  of  the  bulk  of  the  community? 
Plato's  answer,  when  rationalized,  comes  to  this,  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  really  cannot  understand  the  reason 
of  these  principles,  and  that  therefore  they  can  best  be 
maintained  by  being  associated  with  a  myth,  a  story 
of  past  events.  They  are  to  be  taught  to  believe  in 
a  myth a  which  will  make  them  regard  the  country 
they  live  in  as  their  mother,  their  fellow-citizens  as 
brothers,  and  the  social  order  with  its  distinctions  of 
classes  as  a  thing  of  divine  institution.  There  will, 
Plato  indicates,  always  be  persons  in  the  community 
who  know  that  this  myth  is  not  true,  and  that 
patriotism  and  subordination  have  their  sanction  not 
in  historical  events,  but  in  the  constitution  of  human 
nature ;  but  the  rest  are  to  be  encouraged  by  a  myth 
to  hold  a  belief  about  the  order  of  the  community, 
which  is  somewhat  analogous  to  the  belief  in  the  divine 
right  of  kings. 

The  social  organization  which  Plato  thus  seeks  to 
invest  with  a  divine  sanction,  might  at  first  be  compared 
to  that  of  caste.  But  in  the  caste  system  birth  absolutely 
determines  a  man's  position,  while  Plato's  system  is 
based,  not  on  birth,  but  on  capacity  and  attainments. 
He  fully  recognizes  that  children  do  not  always  follow 
their  parents  in  character  and  ability,  though  there  is 
a  general  tendency  for  them  to  do  so ;    and   he  insists 

1  The  materials  for  tliis  myth  are  partly  supplied  to  Plato  by  the 
belief,  which  he  found  existing,  thai  there  were  actual air6x9ovfsf  or  men 
born  from  the  soil,  and  partly  perhaps  by  the  belief  ill  a  '  golden,'  a  '  silvei  . 
nnd  an  '  iron  '  age,  which  had  succeeded  one  another  in  the  past. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  135 

that  every  man  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  rank  and 
function  for  which  his  character  and  abilities  fit  him, 
whatever  his  parentage  may  be1.  He  insists,  accord- 
ingly, that  provision  must  be  made  for  cases  where 
children  are  fitted  either  for  higher  or  for  lower  social 
functions  than  their  parents.  To  him,  as  to  Aristotle, 
the  hereditary  principle  seems  to  hold  good  as  a  general 
rule,  but  he  wishes  to  provide  a  corrective  for  occasional 
cases  in  which  it  works  ill. 

With  regard  to  the  use  of  mythology  which  Plato 
here  proposes,  there  is  no  doubt  that  there  are  great 
dangers  in  acting  upon  the  principle  that  historical  truth 
does  not  matter  as  compared  with  truth  of  ideas.  But 
we  should  not  forget  the  fact  that  suggested  Plato's 
proposal.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  truth  is  held  in 
different  forms  by  different  people  ;  that  religious, 
political,  social,  and  scientific  truths  take  very  different 
shapes  in  unlearned  or  undeveloped,  and  in  learned  or 
developed,  minds.  This  fact  Plato  has  recognized.  We 
might  say  in  criticizing  him  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
society,  while  recognizing  this  inevitable  fact,  to  be 
always  trying  to  do  away  with  it,  by  raising  the 
intellectual  level  of  the  lower  classes.  This  duty  is 
in  theory  admitted  now.  But  whatever  has  yet  been 
done  to  remove  the  fact,  the  fact  remains ;  and  there 
would  not  be  any  real  difference  of  opinion  among  us, 
that  it  is  often  justifiable  to  allow  people  to  retain 
beliefs  which  contain  a  substantial  truth,  although  the 

1  [See  415  B  and  c,  and  cf.  423  c,  d;  but  the  system,  as  later 
developed  in  Book  V  (where  Plato  relies  on  attention  to  breeding  to 
keep  up  the  standard  of  the  ruling  class),  would  apparently  not  admit  of 
promotion  from  the  lower  class,  but  only  of  degradation  to  it.  He  is 
evidently  apprehensive  of  the  tendency  of  aristocracies  to  degenerate  ; 
cf.  VIII.  546  d.— Ed.] 


136         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

form  in  which  it  is  put  is  not  the  truest.  We  have  to 
recognize  the  differences  of  form  in  which  truths  are 
held ;  we  have  at  the  same  time  to  try  and  make  the 
form  as  adequate  as  possible,  to  make  the  truest  truth 
true  to  everybody.  This  is  the  real  function  of 
education. 
415  d  to  The  Guardians  and  Auxiliaries,  as  we  have  seen,  are 

Book  III  *°  be  watched  and  tested  throughout  their  public  life 
to  see  how  well  they  retain  the  principles  which  their 
education  has  formed  in  them  ;  their  promotion  will 
depend  upon  the  results.  The  next  point  which  con- 
cerns their  development  is  that  the  external  arrangement 
of  their  lives  shall  be  conformable  to  the  principles  of 
their  education.  The  way  of  living  now  described  is 
to  be  the  complement  of  the  system  of  education 
(416  c).  Its  ultimate  object  is  the  same;  the  man  is  to 
be  made  to  realize  that  he  is  first  and  foremost  a  servant 
of  the  community.  That  is  the  way  in  which  Plato  first 
introduces  his  communism,  which  is  more  fully  deve- 
loped in  Book  V,  and  which  we  shall  have  to  discuss 
later.  His  principle  being  that  a  man's  happiness  consists 
in  doing  his  work  as  well  as  he  can,  it  seems  to  him 
to  follow  logically  that  we  should  make  it  as  hard  as 
possible  for  a  man  to  do  otherwise.  Therefore  these 
young  citizens,  when  they  enter  public  life,  arc  to  have 
no  inducements  to  neglect  the  public  interest  ;  they  are 
to  have  no  houses,  land,  or  money  of  their  own,  but 
to  live  under  a  kind  of  military  monasticism.  The 
theory  of  mediaeval  monasticism  might  in  effect  be 
expressed  thus :  You  are  going  to  serve  God  ;  let  the 
external  organization  of  your  life  express  that;  do 
without  everything  that  is  not  really  necessary  to  the 
service    of    God.      Plato's    theory    is    the    same,    with 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  137 

the  substitution  of  the  community  for  God.  Both 
theories  have  in  common  the  belief  that  a  great  deal 
can  be  done  for  human  character  by  depriving  men  of 
material  facilities  for  doing  wrong,  and  by  compelling 
them  to  live  externally  a  certain  kind  of  life.  How 
much  can  really  be  done  in  this  way,  and  whether  it  is 
not  better  for  society,  having  given  its  members  educa- 
tion, to  leave  them  free  as  far  as  possible,  is  a  question 
which  in  one  form  or  another,  and  in  different  degrees 
of  intensity,  is  continually  reviving.  For  many  centuries 
in  the  history  of  Europe  what  Plato  proposes  in  this 
passage  was  literally  carried  into  effect.  Whatever  harm 
the  system  did,  it  is  certain  that  it  also  did  enormous 
good,  and  it  is  questionable  whether,  under  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  arose,  the  same  good  could  have 
been  done  in  any  other  way.  In  Plato's  own  time  there 
were  in  some  Greek  states,  especially  Sparta,  partial 
examples  of  what  he  proposes ;  and  this  must  have 
prevented  what  he  says  from  seeming  altogether  para- 
doxical to  his  readers.  Throughout  the  Republic  we 
often  find  a  fusion  between  the  Spartan  principle  of 
absolute  discipline  and  the  Athenian  principle  of  culture. 

The  proposal  that  has  now  been  made  leads  to  the  Book  IV  to 
question  what  account  we  are  taking  of  the  happiness  421 
(evbaiixovta)  of  this  ruling  class.  Here  are  men  with 
brains  and  power ;  is  it  sensible  to  propose  to  take  away 
from  them  all  the  elements  which  are  generally  supposed 
by  such  people  to  make  life  worth  living  ?  According 
to  what  has  been  said  they  cannot  travel,  or  keep 
mistresses,  or  entertain  their  friends,  or  offer  private 
sacrifices  of  their  own  ;  they  are  not  even  to  be  paid 
money,  but  only  to  be  given  the  provisions  they  need. 
Plato's  answer  is  that  we  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to 


138    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

consider  this  question  ;  for  the  present  we  must  proceed 
on  the  principle  on  which  we  started,  that  each  man  is 
a  part  of  a  whole,  the  community,  and  cannot  escape 
from  that  fact  ;  it  is  futile  to  ask  how  we  can  make  the 
part  happy  without  considering  the  whole.  He  takes 
a  simple  and  good  illustration  to  make  his  meaning 
clear :  if  you  were  painting  a  statue  you  would  not  think 
it  artistic  to  paint  the  eye  purple,  because  you  thought 
purple  a  beautiful  colour.  And  why  not  ?  Because 
beauty  is  not  an  abstract  thing ;  it  always  means  a  cer- 
tain quality  of  something  in  relation  to  something 
else ;  so  you  cannot  start  in  painting  with  abstract 
beauty  of  colour,  for  there  is  no  colour  which  will  not 
look  hideous  in  certain  combinations.  In  this  case  you 
must  start  by  considering  the  eye  in  relation  to  the 
body.  Now  apply  the  same  principle  to  happiness. 
People  talk  as  if  certain  things,  fine  houses  and  so  forth, 
were  absolutely  worth  having ;  but  they  are  not  abso- 
lutely good  ;  whether  they  are  good  or  not  depends  on 
who  it  is  that  has  them.  As  for  our  Guardians,  then,  it 
is  of  no  use  to  say  that  as  they  are  the  best  men  in  the 
state  they  must  have  the  best  things.  It  will  not  be 
surprising  if  it  turns  out  (as  it  docs  in  Book  V  *)  that  they 
are  the  happiest  of  men,  but  the  present  point  is  to  fit 
them  for  their  function  in  the  community  ;  for  it  is  owing 
to  their  function  in  the  community  that  they  arc  what 
they  arc,  as  the  eye  is  made  what  it  is  by  its  function 
in  the  body.  Our  object,  then,  is  to  give  not  to  the 
Guardians  but  to  the  whole  state  as  much  happiness 
as  possible.  We  must  leave  the  happiness  of  each  class 
to  be  determined  by  nature ;  by  which  Plato  means, 
by  the  operation  of  those  principles  in  the  human  soul 

1  .{65  I)  to  466  c. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  139 

of  which  his  state  is  the  expression.  The  question  of  the 
happiness  of  this  or  that  class  has  in  fact  no  sense  until 
you  have  determined  the  functions  of  the  class  in  the 
state.  If  you  take  agricultural  labourers  or  potters  and 
put  them  in  fine  clothes,  and  tell  them  they  need  not 
work  any  more,  you  will  not,  as  we  should  say,  be 
making  gentlemen  of  them,  you  will  simply  be  unmaking 
them  as  members  of  the  community  ;  it  will  no  more 
be  for  their  happiness  than  it  will  be  for  the  advantage 
of  the  community  ;  and  the  same  applies  to  all  classes. 

This  incidentally  introduces  us  to  a  consideration  421  c  to 
of  some  of  the  duties  which,  in  governing  the  state,  the  422 
Guardians  will  have  to  discharge.  The  application  of 
the  principle  just  laid  down  to  the  industrial  classes 
makes  us  aware  that  it  is  injurious  to  them  in  the  dis- 
charge of  their  functions  to  possess  either  too  much 
wealth  or  too  little.  The  former  makes  them  indolent, 
the  latter  destroys  their  efficiency.  The  principle  is 
therefore  laid  down,  though  the  means  of  carrying  it  out 
are  not  considered,  that  the  Guardians  will  have  to  keep 
both  riches  and  poverty  out  of  the  state. 

This  raises  a  difficulty,  for  is  not  wealth  the  strength  422  a  to 
of  the  community,  which,  we  must  remember,  will  have  423  B* 
to  fight  for  its  existence  with  other  states  ?  This  sug- 
gestion Plato  answers  by  a  bitter  satire  on  the  present 
condition  of  Greek  states.  His  citizens  will  fight  against 
theirs  as  trained  athletes  against  fat  plutocrats ;  for 
though,  as  this  comparison  reminds  him,  the  rich  young 
men  of  Greece  do  often  know  something  of  boxing  and 
other  forms  of  athletics,  they  are  generally,  it  is  implied, 
getting  physically  degenerate,  and  they  are  all  ill-trained 
in  the  art  of  war  x.     But  what  is  more  important  is,  that 

1  Cf.  Meno,  93  C  to  94  D,  and  Rep.  404  A. 


140  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

a  really  united  state  could  divide  any  one  of  these  states 
of  Greece  against  itself  by  offering  one  class  the  goods  of 
another1.  Not  one  of  them  can  really  be  called  a  city  ; 
you  want  a  larger  name  for  them,  for  each  contains  at 
least  two  cities,  one  of  rich  and  another  of  poor.  You 
will  hardly  find  a  state,  Greek  or  barbarian,  which  has 
a  force  of  a  thousand  fighting  men  and  which  forms  a 
really  united  body. 

423  c  to  r>.  To  preserve  the  unity  of  the  state,  the  Guardians  will 
not  only  have  to  keep  out  excessive  wealth  and  poverty, 
they  will  have  to  see  that  the  state  remains  at  its  proper 
level  of  population.  It  must  neither  be  too  great  to  be 
really  united,  nor  too  small  to  be  able  to  supply  its  own 
needs  adequately.  Harder  still,  they  have  to  take  care 
that  the  system  upon  which  the  social  classes  are  divided 
is  maintained  upon  the  basis  of  merit,  and  not  of  birth 
solely. 

423  e  to  These,  Plato   says  ironically,  are  easy  tasks  for  the 

Guardians  ;  then,  dropping  the  irony,  he  declares  that 
all  these  things  will  be  comparatively  easy  to  them  if  the 
one  essential  thing,  education,  is  maintained.  If  they 
have  once  been  educated  in  the  principle  of  devotion 
to  the  community,  the)'  will  easily  recognize  the  con- 
sequences of  that  principle.  In  enlarging  upon  this 
text  Plato  expresses  an  idea  which  we  very  seldom  find 
in  him,  that  of  a  natural  tendency  to  progress  ;  if  the 
constitution  is  once  started  upon  a  right  basis  and  with 
a  right  spirit,  it  will  go  on  with  accumulating  force,  like 
a  wheel  increasing  its  speed  as  it  runs.  '  The  guard- 
house of  the  Guardians  must  then  be  built  in  juoixriK?/ ; ' 
without  that,  legislation  is  useless.  In  a  strong,  para- 
doxical way  he  tells  us  that  the  fashions  of  music  can 
1  Cf.  Thucydidcs,  III.  82. 


425  A. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  141 

nowhere  be  changed  without  consequences  of  the  gravest 
importance  to  the  state.  The  spirit  of  lawlessness  grows 
from  tiny  beginnings.  When  it  begins  to  appear  in 
music,  it  may  do  no  harm  at  first,  but  it  gradually  filters 
into  the  minds  of  men  and  becomes  in  time  a  great 
subversive  force.  The  utmost  care,  therefore,  must  be 
taken  that  even  the  amusements  of  our  Guardians  shall 
be  instinct  with  the  spirit  of  law  l. 

Plato's  belief  that  changes  in  the  fashion  of  popular 
music  are  signs  of  great  political  change  seems  exagge- 
rated merely  because  it  is  stated  so  simply.  A  modern 
writer  would  establish  the  connexion  between  these 
things  at  greater  length,  but  the  idea  is  certainly  not 
foreign  to  modern  thought.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
great  political  changes  have  their  precursors,  if  we  could 
only  see  them,  in  trifling  changes  of  this  order  ;  and 
after  the  event  of  a  great  revolution,  people  often  set 
themselves  to  study  these  precursory  symptoms,  as 
M.  Taine  has  done  in  writing  about  the  Ancien  Regime 
and  the  French  Revolution.  But  the  mental  and  moral 
state  of  a  population  of  millions  cannot  be  observed  in 
the  same  way  as  that  of  a  small  independent  community 
in  Greece  might  have  been.  If  a  community  something 
like  a  University  were  an  independent  state,  it  would 
be  far  more  true  than  it  is  now  that  every  change 
in  such  things  as  musical  taste  was  a  thing  to  take 
account  of;  and  in  a  state  like  Athens  a  few  prominent 
people,  such  as  Alcibiades,  who  adopted  new  fashions, 
could  produce  a  change  which  was  very  noticeable  and 
very  important. 

Plato  next  tells  us,  in  accordance  with  what  he  has  425  a  to 
just  said,  that   it  is  not  worth  his  while  as  a  political4270' 

1   Cf.  Laws,  III.  700  A  sqq.,  and  VII.  797  A  sqq. 


i42         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

philosopher  to  go  into  the  details  of  legislation  upon 
any  subjects  which  he  has  not  yet  dealt  with.  Among 
the  subjects  of  legislation  he  mentions  not  only  matters 
of  police,  commerce,  and  political  organization,  but 
matters  of  social  behaviour,  dress,  acts  of  politeness, 
and  the  like.  In  a  state  like  Sparta,  though  there  was 
little  written  law,  nearly  all  such  things  were  regulated 
by  custom,  which  had  the  force  of  law.  All  these 
questions  of  legislation,  he  says,  will  settle  themselves 
if  only  the  Guardians  carry  out  the  laws  he  has  already 
laid  down  upon  the  subject  of  education.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  the  right  spirit  has  not  been  created  by  educa- 
tion, no  legislation  on  minor  matters  will  cure  the  evils 
of  the  state.  There  remains  one  subject  of  legislation 
which  he  has  not  dealt  with,  which  does  vitally  concern 
education,  and  that  is  ceremonial  religion  (427  b).  This, 
however,  is  a  matter  he  does  not  understand  ;  all  ques- 
tions about  it  must  be  settled  by  the  oracle  at  Delphi, 
the  Trarpios  e£?jyrj7?/s — the  interpreter  of  divine  things  to 
the  Greek  nation  1.  This  is  an  illustration  of  how  con- 
servative Plato  was,  though  in  matters  of  religious  belief 
he  was  unsparingly  revolutionary. 

The  mention  of  political  legislation  leads  him  to 
satirize  the  legislative  reformers  of  his  own  time  (425  E 
sqq.).  They  always  act  upon  the  idea  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  constitution  must  not  be  touched,  but  that  it  is 
a  good  thing  to  be  constantly  tinkering  the  constitution 
in  details.  According  to  Plato,  the  one  thing  necessary 
is  to  change  existing  political  institutions  radically  in 
their  principle  and  in  their  spirit,  and  when  that  is  once 
done  to  keep  them  as  they  are  ;  the  legislative  reforms 

1   This  is  what  the  epithet  irurpios  implies;    the  word  for  an  ancestral 
institution  of  the  Athenian  people  would  be  varpwos. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    GOVERNMENT  143 

that  statesmen  now  deal  in  are  all  of  them  quack  medi- 
cines. The  thought  and  the  metaphor  are  the  same  as 
in  the  chapter  of  Past  and  Present  ('  Morrison's  Pills  ') 
in  which  Carlyle  satirizes  the  reformers  of  his  day. 

If  we  ask  what  is  Plato's  principle  in  all  that  he  here 
says  of  legislation,  we  find  at  first  a  paradoxical  result ; 
he  would  leave  untouched  all  the  things  about  which 
we  legislate  ;  he  would  legislate  about  things  which  no 
one  would  think  of  asking  Parliament  to  settle,  for  the 
'  laws '  (425  e),  which  he  says  it  is  important  to  make, 
concern  the  great  principles  of  education,  the  principles 
which  should  regulate  artistic  production,  and  the  like. 
According  to  him,  the  function  of  government  as  a 
legislative  power  is  to  lay  down  certain  general  and 
elementary  principles  of  life,  and  to  establish  a  social 
rjdos  (character)  which  people  shall  take  in  as  naturally 
as  the  air  they  breathe.  If  that  be  done,  legislation 
on  the  details  which  our  legislation  touches  will  be 
superfluous,  as  merely  formulating  and  putting  on  parch- 
ment what  everybody  naturally  does.  If  that  be  not 
done,  legislation  is  ineffectual,  as  merely  altering  little 
points  in  life  and  leaving  untouched  the  spirit  within. 
Aristotle  is  quite  at  one  with  Plato  in  maintaining  that 
the  great  problem  for  statesmen  is  to  keep  up  a  certain 
character  among  the  citizens1.  It  is  difficult  to  apply 
that  idea  to  a  modern  state,  because  the  function  of 
legislation  in  a  modern  state  is  different  and  its  scope 
more  limited  than  in  ancient  Greece,  where  the  lines, 
which  now  separate  law  and  custom,  government  and 
public  opinion,  had  not  been  drawn  as  they  now  are. 
However  important  questions  of  what  we  call  politics 
may  be,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  of  the  most  important 

1  Aristotle,  Politics,  1310  A,  12  and  1287  B,  8. 


144         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

things  in  life  comparatively  little  is  touched  by  Parlia- 
mentary measures ;  and  it  is  an  admitted  principle  with 
us,  that  government  must  keep  its  hands  off  many  things 
which  are  of  vital  importance  in  the  life  of  the  nation. 
On  the  other  hand,  what  we  call  '  public  opinion '  does 
to  a  great  extent  perform  the  functions  which  the  Greeks, 
unlike  us,  attributed  to  legislation.  We  differ  from  Plato 
and  Aristotle  not  in  our  view  of  what  is  fundamentally 
important  to  the  community,  but  in  the  line  we  draw 
between  things  with  which  the  state  can  interfere  to 
advantage,  and  things  which  it  should  leave  alone. 
Every  age  and  every  country  must  draw  that  line  dif- 
ferently, and  though  we  are  never  likely  to  assign 
to  the  legislature  proper  such  duties  as  the  Greeks 
would,  there  will  always  be  an  opposition  between 
those  who  deprecate  every  attempt  to  regulate  life  by 
legislation,  and  those  who  would  say,  Let  legislation  do 
as  much  for  the  improvement  of  life  as  it  can.  There  is 
a  feeling  among  us  which  is  expressed  in  the  formula, 
that  the  object  of  all  legislation  should  be  ultimately  to 
make  legislation  superfluous  ;  it  may  be  said  that  the 
more  perfect  a  state  of  society  is,  the  less  it  will  need 
laws  and  the  more  will  a  few  elementary  principles  suffice 
for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  feeling  that  in  a  free 
community  the  amount  of  things  that  can  be  regulated 
well  by  law  is  a  great  test  of  the  general  morale  ;  it 
would  indicate  a  very  high  morale  in  a  community  that 
it  should  allow  a  great  part  of  its  life  to  be  governed  by 
laws  laid  down  by  the  wisest  people  in  it.  The  force  of 
both  these  principles  is  recognized  in  Plato. 


VII.   STATEMENT  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE 
OF  JUSTICE 

[Republic,  IV.  427  E  to  end.] 

The  remainder  of  Book  IV  falls  into  three  divisions. 
(1)  In  the  first  of  these  Plato  determines  the  virtues  of 
the  state,  with  the  special  object  of  discovering  justice 
among  them  (427  E  to  434  d).  (2)  He  then  investigates 
the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  shows  that  the  virtues  of  the 
state  are  merely  expressions  of  the  inward  conditions 
of  the  soul  (434  D  to  441  C).  Finally  (3),  he  applies  the 
results  of  this  investigation  in  determining  the  virtues, 
and  among  them  the  justice,  of  the  individual. 

1 .  The  outlines  of  a  good  community  have  now  been  IV.  427  e 
traced,  and  the  question  arises,  Where  is  'justice,'  °434D- 
which  we  started  to  seek,  to  be  found  in  this  community, 
and  what  is  it  ?  In  answering  this  question  Plato  simply 
continues  further  the  analysis  of  the  conception  of  a  good 
community,  stating  the  problem  of  the  main  elements 
of  a  good  community  in  this  specific  form  :  What  are  the 
virtues  of  such  a  community  ?  He  starts,  as  elsewhere, 
with  accepted  ideas ;  goodness  shows  itself  in  four  main 

VOL.  II.  L 


146         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

forms,  the  cardinal  virtues  of  the  Greeks.  Every  nation 
and  every  epoch  has  its  own  idea  of  virtue  and  its 
own  way  of  expressing  it,  and  the  Greeks  conceived  of 
complete  virtue  as  showing  itself  under  these  four 
principal  aspects : — wisdom  (o-otyia),  courage  (avhpeia), 
temperance  or  self-control  (awcppoaijvr]),  and  justice 
(biKaioavvrj).  Accordingly  Plato  proceeds  to  enquire  in 
turn  how  each  of  these  cardinal  virtues  exhibits  itself 
in  the  life  of  the  state. 

The  method  of  this  discussion  is  an  example  of 
the  genetic  method  which  Plato  follows  throughout  the 
Republic;  that  is  to  say,  he  gradually  develops  certain 
conceptions  which  have  been  present  from  the  first. 
The  discovery  of  the  virtues  of  the  state  is  simply  the 
deeper  analysis  of  modes  of  action  on  the  part  of  the 
citizens,  which  have  already  been  implied  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  state.  The  definition  of  'justice,'  when 
we  arrive  at  it,  is  the  explicit  statement  of  the  point  of 
view  from  which  the  welfare  of  the  state  has  all  along 
been  considered. 

In  talking  about  the  Republic  people  sometimes  speak 
as  if  the  virtues  of  the  state  were  qualities  not  of  indi- 
viduals but  of  some  non-human  entity,  but  Plato  (as 
has  already  been  remarked)  means  by  them  qualities  of 
individual  men.  The  reason  why  he  speaks  of  them  as 
virtues  of  the  state  is  that  they  are  virtues  which  certain 
persons  in  it  exhibit  in  their  public  functions.  When 
you  talk  of  a  state  as  being  well  governed,  you  are 
describing  a  certain  quality  of  certain  persons  in  it, 
namely  those  who  govern  it.  What  quality,  Plato  here 
asks,  do  we  imply  when  we  say  that  a  state  is  wise  or 
brave  or  self-controlled  or  just,  and  in  whom  is  that 
quality  to  be  found? 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  147 

He  begins  (428  a  to  429  A)  with  wisdom  (crocpia  or 
<pp6vri<TLs).  This  is  some  kind  of  knowledge  ;  but  what 
kind  of  knowledge  makes  a  state  wise  ?  The  people  of 
a  state  may  be  clever  in  agriculture  or  in  making  wooden 
articles,  but  we  should  not  therefore  call  it  a  wise  state. 
We  should  call  it  wise  when  it  showed  knowledge  not 
of  this  or  that  particular  branch  of  life,  but  of  how  to 
conduct  itself  generally  in  the  whole  of  its  domestic 
affairs  and  of  its  relations  with  other  states.  The  essence 
of  wisdom  is  good  counsel  or  deliberation  (ei//3ouAia).  If 
therefore  we  ask  in  whom  it  resides,  the  answer  is  that  it 
must  be  looked  for  in  those  who  exercise  the  deliberative 
function  of  government.  The  deliberative  faculty  is  very 
rare ;  there  will  be  many  good  smiths  in  the  state,  but 
not  many  good  statesmen.  Plato  therefore  asserts  as 
an  important  principle  that  very  few  ought  to  take  part 
in  the  deliberative  function  of  the  state.  It  seems  to 
him  a  law  of  nature  that  only  a  very  few  men  are  so 
constituted  as  to  be  able  to  embrace  in  their  minds  the 
good  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  The  wisdom  of  our 
state  will  reside  in  the  full  Guardians  (re'Aeoi  (pvAaKes), 
the  deliberative  body  that  forms  the  legislature  and 
directs  the  executive  of  the  state.  We  have  already 
seen  that  these  Guardians  in  the  full  sense  were  to  govern 
all,  and  that  the  whole  function  of  the  younger  Guardians 
or  Auxiliaries  was  to  accept  upon  their  authority  and  to 
carry  out  certain  h6y\xara,  of  which  the  sum  was  that 
the  interest  of  the  community  was  supreme.  What  was 
implied  in  this  conception  is  developed  in  what  is  here 
said  of  wisdom  and,  afterwards,  of  courage.  Wisdom, 
then,  is  the  virtue  of  the  Guardians,  their  knowledge  of 
the  good  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 

Next   (429 A   to   430c)  comes  courage  (avbpeia,  i.e., 
L  2 


148         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

etymologically,  manliness).  If  we  want  to  know  whether 
a  state  is  brave  we  must  look  at  its  army,  not  because 
the  soldiers  are  the  only  brave  people  in  the  community, 
but  because  it  is  only  through  their  conduct  that  the 
courage  or  cowardice  of  the  community  can  be  manifested. 
From  the  external  manifestation  of  courage,  however, 
Plato  at  once  turns  to  its  inward  nature,  and  defines  it 
in  a  surprising  way,  not  as  bravery  in  the  field  of  battle, 
but  as  the  preservation  under  all  circumstances  of  a  right 
opinion  as  to  what  is,  and  what  is  not,  to  be  feared.  In 
a  former  passage  (413)  he  has  already  described  exactly 
the  same  quality  that  he  here  calls  courage  ;  he  there 
enumerated  the  influence  under  which  a  man  is  likely  to 
give  up  the  beliefs  that  he  holds ;  the  young  Guardians 
were  to  be  tested  as  to  their  power  of  holding  fast  under 
all  these  influences  the  belief  (hoyfia  or  bo^a)  that  the 
interest  of  the  community  is  supreme.  Here  we  are 
told  that  they  must  have  held  fast  under  all  influences 
a  right  opinion  (op0?/  bo£a)  as  to  what  is  to  be  feared 
(bewov).  A(umv  means  anything  calculated  to  excite 
fear,  and  the  typical  Seam-  is  death  ;  but  there  are  many 
other  things  that  we  naturally  shun  ;  all  forms  of  pain  or 
deprivation  of  pleasure  are  in  their  degree  to  be  feared. 
Courage  accordingly,  the  power  of  resisting  fear,  is  not 
confined  to  the  one  form  of  bravery  in  battle.  That  is 
its  typical  form,  but  such  bravery  is  ultimately  based 
upon  the  power  of  sticking  to  what  one  believes  to  be 
right,  and  of  holding  in  their  proper  estimation  the 
things  that  might  make  one  shrink  from  one's  duty. 
This,  then,  is  courage.  For  the  state  to  secure  servants 
who  possess  this  courage  great  care  is  necessary.  Just 
as  a  dyer,  if  he  wishes  a  wool  to  take  the  right  colour 
and  to  hold  it,  must  choose  the  right  material  carefully 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  149 

and  take  pains  in  preparing  it  for  dyeing,  so  we  must 
first  choose  the  right  nature  to  train  for  our  purpose,  and 
then  take  great  pains  in  preparing  it  by  early  education, 
in  order  that  afterwards,  by  the  process  of  obedience  to 
the  law,  the  belief  which  the  law  expresses  may  sink  into 
it  past  washing  out.  From  this  courage  of  the  citizen 
Plato  distinguishes  the  courage  of  the  brute  and  the 
slave,  which  do  not  express  any  such  character  as  he  has 
described ;  they  are  not  the  result  of  education,  but  are 
blind  and  irrational,  and  not  subservient  to  law.  In 
leaving  the  subject,  he  indicates  that  his  account  of 
courage  is  not  final,  and  does  not  tell  us  all  that  complete 
courage  would  involve.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Courage, 
as  he  has  here  described  it,  implies  an  authority  which 
imposes  the  belief  that  is  to  be  preserved ;  and  there 
must  be  a  kind  of  courage  which  shows  itself  in  holding 
fast  beliefs  which  result  from  one's  own  reason  and 
conviction.  Such  a  virtue  is  briefly  described  later 
(486  A,  B).  Starting,  then,  from  a  narrow  conception  of 
courage,  Plato  widens  it  to  include  everything  that  we 
should  call  moral  courage,  and  represents  the  courage  of 
the  soldier  as  a  particular  instance  of  this  more  general 
moral  principle. 

We  should  notice  here  and  further  on  how  Plato 
calls  virtues  '  powers '  (Swa/xeis).  One  is  apt  to  think 
of  virtues  as  abstractions,  or  as,  so  to  say,  appendages 
hung  on  to  a  man.  He  emphatically  represents  them 
as  forces,  powers  to  do  something ;  a  man  of  great 
virtue  in  Greek  means  a  man  with  a  great  power  of 
doing  certain  things. 

The  next  virtue  (430  D  to  432  B),  '  self-control  ' 
{aoocfipoavvrj),  has  been  implied  in  the  constitution  of  the 
state,    with   its   distinction   between   higher   and    lower 


150         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

orders  and  the  recognition  by  the  citizens  generally  that 
this  is  a  right  distinction.  Appealing  to  the  popular 
usage  of  the  word,  Plato  finds  that  adxfrpuv  means 
'stronger  than  oneself  (/cpetrrcou  clvtov),  or,  as  we  might 
say,  master  of  oneself.  This  phrase  seems  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  It  can  only  be  explained  by  the  conception 
that  the  self  is  not  simple  but  complex,  and  that  there 
is  in  it  a  superior  and  an  inferior  part.  In  using  the 
phrase  we  imply  that  one  part  of  the  self  ought  to  rule 
the  other.  Turning  to  society,  where  do  we  find  this 
self-control  showing  itself  on  a  great  scale  ?  We  find  that 
the  superior  elements  in  the  soul  are  chiefly  developed 
in  the  minority  who  are  fit  to  rule,  and  the  inferior 
chiefly  in  the  masses.  For  a  state  to  be  called  self- 
controlled  there  must  be  a  distinction  of  the  naturally 
superior  and  the  naturally  inferior,  and  the  former  must 
rule.  But  this  is  not  enough ;  there  must  also  be 
agreement  (o/xoVota)  between  the  classes,  and  a  general 
recognition  that  this  constitution  is  right.  The  inferior 
might  be  subordinate  without  this  agreement ;  but  a 
really  self-controlled  community  like  our  state  is  unani- 
mous as  to  who  should  rule  and  who  obey.  We  may 
then  call  self-control,  whether  as  seen  in  the  public  life 
of  the  state,  or  as  seen  in  the  way  an  individual  man 
regulates  the  different  parts  of  his  own  nature,  a  sort  of 
harmony  or  symphony,  because  the  essence  of  it  is 
a  unity  of  different  elements;  and  we  cannot  say  that  it 
resides  in  any  one  class  of  the  community  more  than  in 
the  rest,  any  more  than  in  a  concord  the  harmony  resides 
in  one  particular  note. 

Lastly  (432  I!  to  434  n),  what  is  justice?  Really, 
Socrates  exclaims,  the  principle  of  justice  has  been 
tumbling  about  before  our  feet  for  some  time.     At  the 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  151 

very  beginning  of  our  examination  of  society  a  principle 
began  to  appear,  at  first  in  its  economic  form,  afterwards 
in  a  more  general  form,  that  each  man  should  devote 
himself  to  that  one  function  in  the  state  for  which  he 
was  by  nature  best  fitted.  That  principle  in  some  form 
must  be  justice.  Popular  language  confirms  this  idea  by 
representing  it  as  typical  of  the  just  man  that  he  '  does 
his  own  business '  (rd  to,  avrov  -npaTTtiv).  But  to  establish 
this  we  must  ask  what  element  of  goodness  remains  in 
the  state  after  we  have  eliminated  from  consideration 
the  other  three  virtues,  for  the  remaining  element  must 
be  justice.  There  remains  that  which  enables  the  other 
virtues  to  exist  and  maintains  them  in  existence,  and  it 
is  the  principle  which  has  just  been  indicated.  We  may 
perhaps  explain  what  Plato  means  in  the  following 
way: — One  can  imagine  a  community  in  which  there  was 
a  spirit  of  intelligence,  hardihood,  and  of  general  agree- 
ment ;  but  unless  the  classes  and  the  individual  citizens 
of  that  community  had  in  addition  the  power  to  do, 
each  of  them,  their  own  duty  and  to  concentrate  them- 
selves on  their  own  work,  intelligence  would  not  develop 
into  wisdom  or  governing  capacity,  nor  hardihood  into 
disciplined  courage,  and  the  tendency  to  general  agree- 
ment would  remain  a  tendency  and  not  produce  a  really 
unanimous  state.  Justice,  in  Plato's  sense,  is  the  power 
of  individual  concentration  on  duty.  If  a  soldier  is  just 
in  this  sense,  he  is  of  course  a  brave  man  ;  if  a  man  in 
a  subordinate  position  is  just,  he  of  course  accepts  and 
maintains  authority,  or  is  'self-controlled.'  Justice  there- 
fore, though  it  has  been  spoken  of  as  one  among  other 
virtues,  and  though  it  manifests  itself  in  many  particular 
actions  which  are  called  in  a  specific  sense  just,  and  to 
which  the  names  of  the  other  virtues  are  not  applied,  is 


152         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

really  the  condition  of  the  existence  of  all  the  virtues ; 
each  of  them  is  a  particular  manifestation  of  the  spirit 
of  justice,  which  takes  different  forms  according  to 
a  man's  function  in  the  community.  In  modern  phrase 
it  is  equivalent  to  sense  of  duty. 

Plato  proceeds  to  confirm  himself  in  his  idea  of  the 
nature  of  justice.  The  quality  that  has  just  been  de- 
scribed as  justice  is  certainly  fit  to  compete  with  any 
other  virtue  in  its  beneficial  results  to  the  community. 
Again,  this  quality  corresponds  with  the  principle  upon 
which  it  is  acknowledged  that  justice  should  be  ad- 
ministered by  judges  ;  this  is  that  every  man  should 
have  what  is  properly  his  own,  which  is  a  particular 
application  of  to  to.  avrov  irpdrreiv.  Lastly,  we  cannot 
imagine  a  greater  harm  to  the  state  than  a  thorough  carry- 
ing out  of  the  opposite  of  this  principle  (TToXvirpayixocrvvi]), 
which  would  mean  that  every  one  neglected  his  own 
business  and  meddled  with  that  of  others.  Apparently 
then,  if  we  take  what  is  implied  by  popular  phrases,  the 
idea  that  justice  means  doing  your  own  work  and  not 
meddling  with  what  belongs  to  others,  and  if  we  apply 
this  idea  in  its  deeper  sense,  we  shall  find  in  it  the 
principle  that  we  were  seeking  for. 
434 1>  to  2.  Plato,  however,  will  not  yet  pronounce  finally  what 

justice  is.  Retaining  this  idea,  we  turn  to  the  analysis 
of  the  individual  soul  to  see  whether  the  same  conception 
will  apply.  If  it  docs  we  shall  take  it  to  be  true.  Each 
of  the  virtues  that  arc  found  in  a  well-governed  state 
has  an  external  and  an  internal  side.  Each  expresses 
certain  observable  facts  about  the  public  life  of  the 
community ;  wc  can  sec  whether  or  not  there  is  in  it 
governing  capacity,  military  efficiency,  public  unanimity, 
and  a  general  tendency  for  all  classes  to  perform  their 


44  ir. 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  153 

own  social  functions.  On  the  other  hand,  each  virtue 
expresses  a  state  of  mind  or  feeling,  on  the  part  of 
certain  persons,  underlying  and  producing  these  facts. 
This  is  what  interests  Plato  most,  and  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  question,  What  is  justice  in  the  soul  ? 
He  wishes  to  continue  his  analysis  of  a  good  com- 
munity till  he  finds  its  ultimate  roots  in  human  nature, 
showing  how  all  these  public  virtues  depend  upon 
certain  psychological  conditions  in  the  members  of 
the  community. 

The  connexion  must  be  shown  by  an  analysis  of  the 
soul.  In  this  Plato  develops  the  psychological  view,  of 
which  we  have  already  seen  something  in  his  treatment 
of  education.  He  begins  (435  b)  by  enquiring  what  are 
the  different  forms  of  soul,  or  parts  of  the  soul,  present 
in  each  individual  man.  What  is  the  exact  point 
from  which  he  starts  in  this  enquiry,  and  what  place 
does  it  take  in  the  development  of  the  argument 
of  the  Republic?  Analysis  of  society  has  already 
shown  us  that  there  are  three  main  social  functions, 
the  deliberative  or  governing,  the  protective  and  exe- 
cutive, and  the  productive ;  and  the  good  of  society 
has  been  seen  to  depend  upon  these  functions  being 
kept  distinct  and  upon  each  being  rightly  performed. 
Can  we  discover  any  deeper  reason  for  this  organization 
of  society?  Is  the  distribution  of  functions  dependent 
on  the  constitution  of  human  nature?  If  so,  shall  we 
not  find  that  the  right  performance  of  function  on  the 
part  of  society  is  dependent  upon  a  corresponding  per- 
formance of  function  on  the  part  of  the  souls  of  in- 
dividuals, and  that  justice  and  the  other  virtues,  which,  as 
we  have  so  far  seen  them,  consist  in  certain  relations 
between    certain    kinds   of  men    in   the   state,   are    the 


154         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

expression  of  corresponding  relations  between  certain 
elements  in  the  soul  of  man  ?  Justice,  Plato  lays  down, 
must  be  the  same  so  far  as  its  form  goes  (or,  as  we 
should  say,  must  be  in  principle  the  same),  whether 
it  is  manifested  in  the  state  or  in  a  single  man  ;  that 
is  to  say,  we  may  expect  to  find  in  the  right  perform- 
ance of  function  by  the  soul  some  similar  principle  to 
that  which  governs  the  right  performance  of  function 
by  the  state. 

In  beginning  this  discussion  Plato  tells  us  that  he 
is  dissatisfied  with  the  method  by  which  he  is  seeking 
to  define  justice,  and  further  on  in  the  Republic  he  comes 
back  to  this  passage  (504  A  sq.).  However,  the  method 
is  in  accordance  with  that  of  other  parts  of  the  book ; 
it  consists  partly  in  appealing  to  popular  conceptions, 
refining  on  them  and  developing  them,  partly  in  apply- 
ing a  preconceived  principle  of  his  own  by  which  he 
criticizes  them.  In  the  first  place,  he  tells  us,  it  is 
a  truism  that  the  character  of  a  nation  or  a  state  is  the 
character  of  individual  men  in  it.  Men  belonging  to 
the  various  nations,  which  came  within  the  field  of  his 
observation  (Greeks,  Scythians  and  Thracians,  Phoeni- 
cians and  Egyptians),  exhibit  the  dispositions  and  the 
characteristic  activities  which  are  the  marks  of  the 
several  classes  of  which  the  state  is  composed.  The  real 
question,  he  says,  is  whether  in  the  various  activities  or 
functions  of  the  soul,  which  arc  characteristic  of  parti- 
cular classes  or  particular  nations,  the  whole  soul  is 
active,  or  only  a  form  or  part  of  the  soul.  What 
makes  him  think  this  question  so  important?  If  it 
turned  out  that  the  whole  soul  was  equally  involved  in 
each  of  these  various  activities  (each  of  which  is  specially 
.  haracteristic   of  the  functions  of  one  social  class),  the 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  155 

question  would  arise  whether  any  one  soul  could  not 
equally  well  be  employed  upon  any  one  of  these  social 
functions,  and  whether  any  one  man  could  not  equally 
well  be  a  governor  or  a  soldier  or  a  trader.  The  whole 
structure  of  society,  as  Plato  conceives  it,  is  based  upon 
the  fact  that  the  activities  in  question  are  activities  of 
different  '  parts '  of  the  soul,  and  that,  though  each  of 
these  parts  is  present  in  a  degree  in  every  man,  the 
different  parts  are  very  differently  developed  in  different 
men. 

To  determine  this  question  Plato  first  (436  B  sq.)  lays 
down  a  general  principle,  which  is  an  application  of 
what  is  sometimes  called  the  Law  of  Identity  and  Con- 
tradiction, and  which  he  formulates  thus :  the  same 
thing  cannot  act  or  be  acted  upon  in  the  same  part  of  it 
and  at  the  same  time  in  opposite  ways.  To  apply 
this  to  the  soul ;  do  we  find  in  it  certain  forms  of 
action  or  reaction  taking  place  at  the  same  time 
and  towards  the  same  thing,  which  are  mutually  ex- 
clusive and  opposite  to  one  other?  Appetite  generally, 
he  answers,  may  be  defined  as  a  form  of  assenting  to 
something,  drawing  something  to  ourselves,  or  reach- 
ing out  towards  something ;  if,  then,  we  ever  find  in 
the  soul  an  activity,  the  direct  opposite  to  this,  mani- 
fested at  the  same  time  and  in  regard  to  the  same 
object,  we  must  infer  that  there  are  two  different 
agents  present,  two  different  forms  of  soul.  Now  as 
a  matter  of  fact  we  are  familiar  with  this  phenomenon. 
We  often  find  ourselves,  for  example,  desiring  to  drink 
and  at  the  same  time  reflecting  that  it  is  better  not  to,  and 
we  must  conclude  that  the  element  of  desire  or  appetite 
(eTTiOvixia,  or  to  €Tn6vfxriTiK.uv)  which  attracts  us  to  the 
drink,  and  the  element  of  reason  (to  AoyurriKoV,  or  w  Aoyt- 


156         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

Cerat   fj   ^x7i)   which    holds    us  back    from   it,  are  two 
distinct  parts  or  forms  of  the  soul 1. 

So  far  the  observation  of  admitted  facts  has  led  us  to 
distinguish  two  forms  of  psychical  activity,  appetite  and 
reason.  Can  we  further  say  that  what  we  have  already 
called  '  spirit '  (Ov^oi  or  0u//oei5e's  or  <L  0vjj.oviJ.e8a)  is  a  third 
form  distinct  from  either  (439  E  sqq.)?  Plato  observes 
that  when  a  man  is  conscious  of  having  acted  against 
his  better  judgment  in  consequence  of  the  stress  of 
appetite,  he  is  angry  with  himself  and  with  the  appetites 
which  have  made  him  go  wrong ;  men  have  been  heard 
to  swear  at  their  appetites  at  the  moment  of  yielding 
to  them  ;  whereas  when  a  man  follows  an  appetite  which 
he  thinks  he  is  right  in  following,  he  feels  no  such  anger. 
Further,  he  observes  that  when  a  man  thinks  that  he  is 
in  the  wrong  and  has  to  suffer  for  it,  the  nobler  his 
nature  the  less  he  is  capable  of  feeling  indignation  ;  while 
conversely,  if  he  thinks  he  is  unjustly  treated,  the  nobler 
his  nature  the  more  his  blood  boils.  These  facts  lead 
to  a  double  conclusion  :  first,  that  '  spirit,'  which  is  that 
in  us  with  which  we  feel  anger,  is  not  convertible  with 
any  form  of  appetite ;  secondly,  that  there  is  a  sort 
of  natural  affinity  between  '  spirit '  and  the  better  self 
— not  indeed  that  it  is  never  wrong,  but  that  it  has 
a  natural  tendency  to  side  with  reason  rather  than  with 
appetite.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  obvious  that  'spirit' 
is  not  convertible  with  reason,  for  we  sometimes  find 
it  rebuked  by  reason,  and  we  also  find  it  present  in 
a  high  degree  in  children  and  in  the  lower  animals. 

This  passage  (435  B  10441  C)  is  sometimes  appealed 

1  I  There  followed  in  the  lectures  a  discussion  of  difficulties  in  the  argu 
ment  leading  to  this  conclusion  ;  hut  the  passage  has  been  omitted,  as  it 

was  not  found  possibleto  reproduce  it  with  the  necessary  exactness. —  Ed.] 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  157 

to  as  the  one  complete  and  authoritative  statement  of 
Plato's  psychology.  It  is  not  so  ;  it  is  only  a  link  in 
the  argument,  and  brings  out  a  single  point,  the  incon- 
vertibility of  certain  psychical  functions.  What  those 
functions  are  is  not  completely  stated  here,  but  must 
be  gathered  from  the  whole  of  the  Republic ;  and  the 
clearest  and,  on  the  whole,  most  satisfactory  statement 
on  the  subject  is  at  the  end  of  Book  IX.  (a)  We  find 
that  Plato's  conception  of  '  spirit '  covers  three  great 
facts  which  seem  to  him  to  have  a  common  source. 
First,  it  is  the  fighting  element  in  man,  which  makes 
him  resist  aggression,  and  also  makes  him  aggressive. 
Secondly,  it  is  something  in  man  (not  itself  rational, 
but  seeming  to  have  an  affinity  with  his  better  self) 
which  makes  him  indignant  at  injustice,  and  again 
leaves  him  a  coward  when  he  feels  himself  in  the 
wrong.  Thirdly  (in  Book  IX),  it  is  that  which 
makes  a  man  competitive  and  ambitious.  (b)  The 
rational  part  of  the  soul  (here  called  to  AoyioruoV, 
and  elsewhere  generally  to  tyiXoaofyov)  has  two  totally- 
different  functions.  It  is  intelligence,  the  element  in 
man  which  enables  him  to  understand  things.  But  in 
Plato's  mind  this  is  inseparably  connected  with  a  form 
of  love  (which  is  what  the  (f>i\o-  in  $iAoVo$oi>  indicates). 
The  philosophic  element,  as  it  first  appears  in  Book  II, 
is  something  in  man  which  makes  him  fond  of  what  he 
understands,  and  again  makes  him  want  to  understand 
what  he  is  attracted  to.  Accordingly  in  Book  III  it  is 
this  which  makes  man  capable  of  understanding  litera- 
ture and  art,  and  makes  him  love  what  is  beautiful ;  the 
understanding  and  the  attraction  go  together.  It  is 
this  again  which  holds  society  together,  attracting  men 
to  one   another  and  enabling-  them  to  understand  one 


158         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

another  (we  also  associate  these  two  things  together  ; 
to  like  a  person  you  must  understand  him,  and  to  under- 
stand him  you  must  like  him  or  sympathize  with  him). 
In  Books  VI  and  VII  the  same  element  in  man  is  the 
source  of  science  and  philosophy ;  these  arise  from 
the  fact  that  there  is  something  in  man  which  draws 
him  to  nature  and  makes  him  want  to  understand  it, 
or  that,  in  other  words,  there  is  a  sort  of  affinity  between 
the  soul  and  nature.  In  the  present  passage  the  philosophic 
element  or  reason  is  described  merely  as  something 
which  is  found  in  certain  cases  to  oppose  certain  kinds 
of  appetite,  (c)  The  appetitive  part  of  the  soul  here 
consists  in  what  we  should  call  bodily  appetites,  and 
the  desire  for  wealth  (436  a)  as  the  means  of  satisfying 
them  1. 

When  Plato  suggests  that  a  difficulty  might  be  raised 
on  the  ground  (apparently)  that  appetite  or  desire  is  for 
something  good  and  therefore  is  never  unqualified  attrac- 
tion to  the  particular  object  desired,  he  is  on  the  point 
of  passing  from  tinOviAia  in  this  narrower  sense,  which 
is  best  conveyed  by  our  word  '  appetite,'  to  eindvij.ia  in  the 
wider  sense  of  any  desire,  any  consciousness  of  a  want. 
Taking  the  word  in  this  latter  sense  it  is  difficult  to 
apply  the  opposition  between  reason  and  desire  on  which 
he  bases  his  conclusions.  In  every  desire  there  is  an 
element  of  rational  activity,  and  in  the  most  reasonable 
direction  of  our  activities  there  is  an  clement  of  desire. 
So  we  may  say  that  the  real  conflict  is  not  between  reason 
as  such  and  desire  as  such,  but  between  different  kinds 
of  desires,  and  accordingly  in  Book  IX  we  find  that 
each  of  the  three  forms  of  soul  has  its  own  special 
ita.Qvy.la.     Plato,  however,  generally  keeps  to  the    nar- 

1    Cf.  IX.  580  I),  E. 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  159 

rower  sense  of  the  word  eu-iflu/aia,  the  kind  of  desire  in 

which  the  element  of  simple  attraction  is  most  prominent,     . 

and  the  element  of  reason  or  thinking  is  smallest ;  and. 

in    that    sense   of   t-mdvixia  or   appetite,  the    opposition, 

which  he  adopts  from  popular  phraseology,  between  it 

and  reason   is  quite  intelligible.     (The    division   of  the 

soul  into  three  parts,  three  forms  or  kinds  of  psychical 

activity,  is  an  anticipation  not  so  much  of  the  division 

of '  faculties  '  (the  '  will,'  the  '  reason,'  &c.)  as  of  Aristotle's 

distinction  of  kinds  of  soul  in  the  Ethics1.) 

3.  It  remains  to  apply  this  analysis  of  the  individual  441  c  to 
.  r  ...  end  of 

soul  so  as  to  confirm  our  supposition  as  to  the  nature  Book  iv. 
of  justice.  The  manner  in  which  it  will  be  applied  is 
obvious  ;  but  what  does  it  mean,  what  is  the  distinction 
between  the  virtues  of  the  state  and  the  virtues  of  the 
individual,  and  what  is  the  advance  that  we  make  in 
passing  from  one  to  the  other  ?  The  virtues  of  society 
consisted  in  the  ways  in  which  different  classes  of  men 
with  certain  functions  in  society  performed  those  func- 
tions. The  organization  of  society,  owing  to  which  they 
had  these  functions  in  it,  depended  upon  the  fact  that 
certain  characteristics  were  dominant  in  certain  men, 
just  as  different  nations  too  are  distinguished  from  one 
another  by  the  predominance  of  one  or  other  of  the 
same  characteristics,  the  fighting  spirit  being  dominant 
in  one,  the  commercial  spirit  and  the  desire  for  material 
prosperity  in  another.  But  while  different  classes  and 
races  of  men  thus  differ,  there  is  no  human  being  in 
whom  these  characteristic  things  exist  alone  ;  no  human 
being  is  all  appetite,  or  all  'spirit,'  or  all  philosophy. 
And  so  morality,  beyond  implying  the  performance 
by  each  individual  of  the  function  in  society  to  which, 

1  Eth.  Nic.  I.  xiii.  8  to  19. 


160         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

in  a  well-ordered  state  at  any  rate,  the  dominant  element 
in  his  soul  assigns  him,  means  also  certain  modes  of 
action  and  certain  mutual  relations  on  the  part  of  these 
fundamental  forms  of  psychical  activity  in  the  individual. 
A  happy  instinct,  Plato  says,  has  from  the  first  led  us 
on  the  track  of  justice.  We  dreamt  that  the  principle  of 
'  doing  one's  own  business '  (rd  to.  avrov  -npa.TTe.tv),  spoken 
of  first  in  its  simple  economic  sense,  was  justice.  It 
proves  to  have  been  an  '  image,'  an  outward  expression 
of  justice.  Real  justice  means  not  the  mere  doing  of 
one's  own  business  in  the  state,  but  such  outward  doing 
of  one's  own  business  as  is  an  expression  of  a  correspond- 
ing mode  of  action  within  the  soul ;  if  the  outward  action 
is  really  just,  it  means  that  the  soul  is  just  within,  that 
like  a  just  state  the  whole  soul  and  the  several  parts 
of  it  perform  their  proper  functions  in  relation  to  one 
another.  In  all  points  the  virtue  of  a  well-constituted 
state  is  shown  to  be  identical  in  principle  with  the  virtue 
of  a  healthy  individual  soul.  When  we  call  a  man  wise, 
we  mean  he  has  the  power  of  understanding  what  is  for 
his  real  interest  as  a  whole  man  ;  when  we  call  a  state 
wise,  we  ought  to  mean  that  the  men  who  have  the  gift 
for  governing  have  their  understandings  entirely  set 
upon  the  interest  of  the  whole  state.  Again,  a  brave 
man  is  one  who  has  the  courage  of  his  opinions,  that  is, 
one  who  will  carry  out  his  principles,  whether  those 
principles  arc  the  result  of  his  own  reason  or  received 
from  others ;  and  a  brave  state  is  one  where  the  men 
who  have  to  defend  it,  have  the  courage  to  carry  out 
the  laws  and  principles  imposed  by  constituted  authority. 
Again,  by  a  temperate  or  self-controlled  man  we  mean 
not  merely  one  who  governs  his  appetites,  but  one  in 
whose  soul    there   is   harmony  and   no   internal   conflict 


THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    JUSTICE  161 

between  different  parts  of  his  nature ;  and  by  a  self- 
controlled  state  we  mean  one  in  which  social  order 
is  not  merely  preserved  by  the  army  and  police,  but 
rests  upon  general  agreement.  Lastly,  a  man  is  found 
just  in  all  relations  of  life  in  so  far  as  the  different 
elements  of  his  nature  are  doing  their  own  business,  in 
so  far,  that  is,  as  he  is  really  one  man  and  not  many ; 
and  a  state  is  just  when  it  is  a  united  whole,  in  which 
each  class  is  set  upon  doing  that  which  (looking  at  the 
interests  of  the  community  at  large)  it  can  do  best. 
Thus  the  virtues  of  the  state,  which  are  the  modes  of 
action  of  the  citizens  in  their  public  capacity,  are,  when 
traced  to  their  source,  the  expression  of  a  certain 
condition  of  their  souls,  which  Plato  calls  justice  in  the 
soul.  And  further,  this  inward  condition  of  the  soul 
and  the  constitution  of  society,  which  is  its  outward 
expression,  are  so  far  one  in  principle  that  each„  consists 
in  the  proper  discharge  ofjunction  by  distinct  parts  in 
a  single-whole. 

Under  all  the  forms  which  the  argument  in  the  later 
Books  of  the  Republic  takes,  the  chief  object  in  which 
Plato  is  interested  is  to  work  out  this  conception  of  the 
healthy  constitution  of  the  soul. 


VOL.  II.  M 


VIII.    COMMUNISM   AND    DIGRESSION 
ON    USAGES    OF   WAR 

[Republic,  V.  to  471  c] 

Books  V-  BOOKS  V  to  VII  form  a  section  of  the  Republic  which 
is  clearly  distinguished  by  its  subject-matter  from  what 
comes  before  and  after,  and  is  described  at  the  beginning 
of  Book  VIII  as  having  been  a  digression.  Some 
critics  have  thought  that  these  Books  were  written  later 
than  those  that  follow  them,  and  were  inserted  into  the 
original  work,  because  it  would  be  possible  to  read 
straight  on  from  the  end  of  Book  IV  to  the  beginning 
of  Book  VIII  without  noticing  any  break  in  the  subject 
or  any  great  difference  in  the  philosophy  or  psychology. 
The  tone  of  Books  V  to  VII  is  also  different  from  that 
of  the  previous  Books.  There  is  more  bitterness,  a  deeper 
conviction  of  the  evils  which  beset  mankind,  and  a 
stronger  feeling  of  the  difficulty  of  reform.  Socrates  is 
represented  as  feeling  at  every  step  that  he  is  in  direct 
antagonism  to  public  opinion,  as  almost  afraid  to  say 
what  he  has  to  say,  and  yet  as  convinced  and  prepared 
to  face  the  scepticism  and  ridicule  with  which  he  knows 
he  will  be  met.     It  is  impossible  to  prove  any  theory 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  163 

as  to  how  Plato  composed  his  work,  nor  does  it  matter 
so  long  as  it  is  clear  that  there  is  a  real  logical  connexion 
between  the  subjects  of  the  different  parts.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  first  four  Books  were  published  first, 
and  that  criticisms  which  fastened  on  the  most  obviously 
paradoxical  suggestions  in  them  induced  Plato  to  work 
out  at  fuller  length  the  consequences  of  his  conception 
of  an  ideal  state.  But  it  is  quite  possible  also  that 
Plato  intended  from  the  first  to  compose  the  work  in  its 
present  form.  There  are  in  the  earlier  Books  indications 
of  his  feeling  that  there  was  a  great  deal  more  to  be  said 
about  certain  points  that  he  raised  by  the  way 1.  In 
a  modern  book  a  writer  might  announce  his  intention 
of  treating  his  subject  first  in  a  general  and  superficial 
manner,  not  because  he  was  unaware  of  the  consequences 
to  which  his  principles  led,  but  because  he  preferred  to 
reserve  till  a  later  stage  a  fuller  discussion  of  those  con- 
sequences :  writing  as  Plato  does  in  a  dramatic  way 
he  brings  in  again  at  this  point  certain  personages  of 
the  dialogue,  and  makes  them  criticize  the  procedure 
of  Socrates  and  insist  on  his  returning  to  a  point  which 
needs  further  working  out. 

To  show  the  connexion  between  Book  V  and  the 
earlier  Books,  we  must  sum  up  the  results  that  have  so 
far  been  reached.  Plato  has  been  seeking  to  discover 
the  principle,  if  there  is  one,  by  obeying  which  human 
life  in  society  will  become  the  best  that  it  can  be.  He 
has  found  it  in  the  fact  that  on  the  one  hand  no  soul  is 
self-sufficient,  but  each  requires  the  help  of  society,  and 
on  the  other  hand  every  soul  can  contribute  something  to 
the  social  whole  of  which  it  forms  part.       It  results  from 

1  See,  for  example,  414  A,  435  D :  and  see  Book  V.  450  B,  453  c, 
472  A,  473  E;  Book  VI.  497  c,  D,  502  E,  504  A,  B. 

M  2 


164         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

this  that  the  ideal  of  human  society  is  a  collection  of 
souls  so  organized  that  each  may  contribute  its  best  to 
the  whole  and  get  from  the  whole  what  it  most  wants  ; 
everybody  in  such  a  society  would  do  what  he  was  best 
fitted  to  do,  and  the  result  would  be  that  everybody 
would  do  both  what  was  best  for  himself  and  what  was 
best  for  others.  The  principle  upon  which  such  a  society 
would  be  based  is,  according  to  Plato,  that  in  which 
justice  consists.  His  perfect  state  is  substantially  the 
same  in  its  conception  as  St.  Paul's  perfect  Church  or 
perfect  spiritual  community,  and  each  represents  his  ideal 
under  the  figure  of  a  perfect  human  body  (462  c). 

The  particular  point,  in  the  description  of  a  state 
based  on  this  principle,  which  forms  the  connexion 
between  Books  IV  and  V  is  the  proposed  community 
of  wives,  accompanied  here  by  the  proposal  of  com- 
munity of  pursuits  between  men  and  women.  It  has 
been  laid  down  in  a  cursory  way  (423  E  sq.)  that  the 
family  along  with  private  property  would  cease  to  exist 
among  the  guardians  of  the  ideal  community,  and  this, 
it  now  appears,  was  meant  to  imply  further  that  men 
and  women  should  both  take  part  in  the  public  life  of  the 
community.  Paradoxical  as  this  suggestion  is.  it  is  not 
thrown  out  casually  ;  it  is  simply  the  most  startling  of  the 
consequences  which  to  Plato  himself  seem  to  follow  from 
the  principle  which  governs  the  ideal  community.  The 
ideal  community  would  be  one  which  was  literally  and 
indeed  a  community  (itoivoavta),  and  every  member  of  it 
would  be  absolutely  a  partaker  in  it  (Koircoro's) ;  he  would 
have  nothing  private  (Zhtoi') ;  he  would  not  be  content 
with  doing  certain  external  acts  of  a  common  life,  but 
would  literally  feel  that  he  was  one  with  other  men.  In 
fixing  upon  this  point,  community  of  wives,  as  deserving 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  165 

further  discussion,  Plato  is  forcing  himself  to  carry  out 
his  fundamental  principle  in  detail  and  to  the  fullest 
consequences  which,  he  thinks,  can  be  drawn  from  it. 

But  Book  V  goes  on  to  a  subject  which  has  little 
apparent  connexion  with  this.  The  divisions  of  the  Book 
correspond  with  three  difficulties  which  Socrates  has 
to  face  in  succesion,  three  '  waves,'  each  more  over- 
whelming than  the  one  before  it.  The  first  difficulty 
is  to  show  that  men  and  women  should  have  the  same 
education  and  partake  in  the  same  public  functions 
(451  c  sqq.) ;  the  second,  that  the  family  as  it  now  exists 
should  cease  to  exist  amongst  the  highest  classes,  and 
that  they  should  form  instead  one  family  (457  B  sqq.);  the 
third,  that  the  salvation  of  society,  and  its  only  salvation, 
lies  in  the  sovereignty  of  philosophy  (473  B  sqq.).  The 
simplest  way  of  expressing  what  is  meant  by  this  last 
contention  is  to  say  that  human  life  would  be  as  nearly 
ideal  as  it  is  capable  of  being,  if  it  were  regulated  by 
the  best  possible  knowledge  on  all  subjects,  and  that 
it  follows  from  this  that  the.  ideal  of  society  would  be 
realized  if  statesmanship  were  combined  with  the  most 
profound  knowledge.  We  should  observe  that  Plato 
speaks  of  this  idea  as  one  that  he  has  had  before  him 
all  along  but  has  been  afraid  to  express  ;  it  is  the  ulti- 
mate consequence  of  the  principle  upon  which  the  ideal 
state  was  based.  He  speaks  also  as  if  there  was  a  close 
connexion  in  his  mind  between  this  idea  and  that  of 
communism  ;  so  that  the  three  '  waves '  of  the  argument 
form  one  series.  One  naturally  wonders  at  first  what 
connexion  there  is  between  the  two  subjects.  The  con- 
nexion in  Plato's  mind  is  an  idea  that  if  society  were 
governed  by  real  knowledge  and  if  men  saw  clearly 
what  their  real  interest  is,  they  would   see   that   the}' 


166         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

could    only   live    at   their   best   by   living   a   perfectly 
common   life.     He  finds  in  the  constitution  of  human 
nature  something  which  makes  common  life  possible  to 
man  ;  and  this  is  the  highest  thing  in  man,  that  which 
makes  him  human  and  that  also  in  which  he  partakes  of 
the  divine  ',  the  philosophic  element.      The  more  it  pre- 
dominates the  better  ;    its  complete  predominance  over 
the   lower  elements   in   man  would   involve   a   perfectly 
common  life,  and,  conversely,  perfect  community  would 
only    be    possible  through    its    complete   predominance. 
To  look  at  the  matter  from  the  other  side,  all  the  evils 
of  life   appear   to   him    to   arise   from    selfishness ;  and 
selfishness  is  simply  seeking  one's  own  satisfaction  in  the 
wrong  way,  seeking  it  in  the  lower  instead  of  the  higher 
elements  of  one's  nature.     Unselfishness,  which  enables 
a   man    most   completely  to  live  a    common   life  with 
others,  is  one  and  the  same  thing  with  the  predominance 
of    the   philosophic    element,    the    highest    element    in 
man's  own  soul.     Thus  communism  and  the  sovereignty 
of  philosophy,  which  together  form  the  subject  of  this 
Book,  appear  together  to  Plato  as  the  ultimate  conse- 
quences of  the  principle  upon  which  his  ideal  state  is 
based. 

We  may  notice  at  once  two  aspects  of  the  general 
idea  which  is  in  Plato's  mind,  when  he  makes  this 
proposal  that  philosophy  should  by  some  means  be 
made  sovereign  in  the  state,  (a)  The  philosophic  ele- 
ment, which  is  in  the  first  place  that  which  enables 
man  to  understand  and  to  live  with  his  fellows,  is  also 
what  we  sometimes  call  the  '  speculative  clement,' the 
instinct  of  free  thought  which  makes  men  wish  to  get 
to   the  bottom  of  things.     To  a  certain   limited  extent 

1  Cf.  IX.  588  I)  and  589  I). 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  167 

this  exists  in  every  man,  and  without  it  he  would  not 
be  a  human  being  ;  but  in  the  majority  it  is  present  only 
in  a  subordinate  form.  It  enables  them,  perhaps,  to 
obey  certain  precepts  of  reason  which  society  has  taught 
them,  and  to  feel  that  they  are  right  in  obeying  them. 
But  it  only  exists  in  a  few  people  as  a  really  philosophic 
or  speculative  impulse.  It  is  clear  that  Plato  was  very 
deeply  impressed  by  the  evils  resulting  from  the  aber- 
ration of  this  impulse  in  the  men  in  whom  it  is  by  nature 
strongest.  If  wrongly  developed,  he  believes  it  is  the 
greatest  instrument  of  destruction  in  society;  the  majority 
of  men  do  no  great  good  and  no  great  harm  in  the  world, 
those  who  do  great  evil  do  so  by  reason  of  a  perversion 
of  the  philosophic  element  in  them.  The  good  of  man- 
kind requires  that  this,  which  is  inherently  the  best  thing 
in  human  nature,  should  not  be  allowed  to  become 
a  destructive  force,  but  should  be  enlisted  in  the  service 
of  man.  It  has  already  been  attempted,  in  the  ideal 
state,  to  enlist  the  artistic  instinct  and  the  fighting 
instinct  in  that  service ;  let  the  power  of  thinking,  a 
still  more  potent  force  in  the  world,  be  so  enlisted  too. 
(b)  Again,  the  philosophic  element  in  man  answers  to 
what  we  should  call  the  'spiritual'  element ;  and  mediaeval 
and  modern  analogies  to  the  idea  of  a  state  ruled  by 
philosophy  may  be  found  in  the  idea  of  a  '  spiritual ' 
state,  which  has  been  entertained,  though  in  different 
senses,  by  many  people.  One  result  of  this  idea  at  its 
best  was  the  mediaeval  Catholic  Church,  and  in  England 
in  the  seventeenth  century  many  men  had  the  idea  of 
a  state  in  which  religion  should  literally  rule. 

Of  the  particular  consequences  which  the  true  idea 
of  the  state  seemed  to  Plato  to  involve,  the  form  of 
communism  which  he  advocates  is  the  most  remarkable. 


168         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

With  regard  to  this,  we  should  guard  against  the  mis- 
understanding that  communism  means  to  him  the 
sacrifice  of  the  individual.  As  we  have  seen,  the  simple 
and  inevitable  result  of  the  conception  of  a  community 
in  the  real  sense  of  the  word  seems  to  him  to  be  that 
the  individual  should  lead  a  completely  common  life ; 
but  he  certainly  does  not  think  that  the  individual  would 
be  sacrificing  himself  to  the  community  in  leading  this 
life.  On  the  contrary,  when  he  demands  that  the  best 
should  be  done  for  the  community,  it  is  not  in  order 
that  the  individual  man  may  be  nothing,  but  in  order 
that  he  may  be  the  most  that  he  is  capable  of  being. 
The  highest  life  for  each  individual  is  that  in  which  the 
greatest  number  of  people  share,  and  the  lowest  that  in 
which  the  least  number  share. 

Communism  has  been  advocated  from  many  different 
points  of  view.  As  advocated  by  Plato,  it  has  hardly 
anything  in  common  with  the  communism  of  this 
century ;  it  is  not  suggested  by  the  evils  of  poverty, 
and  it  only  applies  to  the  highest  classes  in  the  state. 
The  one  point  common  to  all  systems  of  communism 
is,  that  all  profess  to  meet  certain  assumed  evils  by  the 
external  regulation  of  human  life  in  whole  or  in  large 
part.  Plato  introduces  communism  as  supplementary 
machinery  to  give  effect  to  and  reinforce  that  spirit 
which  education  is  to  create.  Nobody  has  insisted 
more  than  he  on  the  comparative  usclcssness  of  legisla- 
tion when  the  souls  of  men  arc  not  in  a  right  stale, 
but  he  also  feels  strongly  the  logical  necessity  that  the 
external  order  of  life  should  be  made  to  contribute  its 
utmost  to  the  moral  education  of  men.  We  have  already 
in  the  earlier  Books  seen  indications  of  the  attitude  of 
mind  which    makes    him    think    that    for    this    end  the 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  169 

abolition  of  the  family  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  for. 
In  his  treatment  of  the  arts,  despite  his  intense  artistic 
sympathies,  he  adopts  a  theory  which  might  easily  lead 
to  the  extirpation  of  art  from  human  life.  Two  feelings 
struggle  in  him,  the  feeling  of  what  art  may  do  for  men, 
and  the  feeling  of  the  evil  that  is  often  associated  with  it; 
and  the  result  of  the  conflict  is  the  idea  that  art  can  only 
be  made  serviceable  in  the  world  by  limiting  it.  In  the 
same  way,  when  he  deals  with  property  and  the  family, 
starting  from  the  idea  that  the  more  a  man  leads  a 
common  life  the  higher  life  he  leads,  he  becomes  filled 
with  a  sense  of  the  enormous  evils  which  attach  to  these 
institutions  ;  they  appear  to  him  as  the  great  strongholds 
of  selfishness.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  selfish- 
ness has,  in  fact,  found  in  these  two  institutions  not  its 
cause  but  its  most  pernicious  expression.  To  Plato, 
writing  in  the  spirit  of  an  enthusiast  for  social  reform, 
this  fact  seems  to  prove  that  in  order  to  bring  about 
a  common  life  we  must  cut  away  these  along  with  all 
other  inducements  to  selfishness. 

Two  distinct  ideas  therefore  are  combined  in  this  part 
of  the  Republic :  the  idea  that  the  highest  life  is  a  common 
life  and  that,  so  to  say,  in  losing  himself  a  man  finds 
himself;  and  the  idea  that  men  had  better  be  stripped 
of  all  inducements  not  to  lead  this  life.  The  latter  idea 
will  always  attract  more  attention.  There  seems  to  be 
a  perpetual  conflict  in  the  world  between  two  feelings. 
One,  of  which  Plato  may  be  considered  a  type,  is  that 
the  way  to  bring  about  an  ideal  state  of  things  is  to  do 
away  with  all  occasions  of  evil.  The  other  is,  that  the 
way  to  make  the  best  of  human  life  is  not  to  begin  by 
taking  away  opportunities  of  evil,  but  to  use  everything 
that  human  life  offers  in  the  service  of  the  ideal  principle, 


170         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

whatever  we  may  take  it  to  be.  This  latter  feeling,  we 
may  say  roughly,  is  represented  by  Aristotle.  It  is  by 
no  means  the  opposite  of  idealism  ;  Aristotle  has  a  more 
ideal  conception  of  human  life  than  Plato.  The  prin- 
ciple of  pressing  everything  in  human  life  into  the  service 
of  what  is  highest  is  harder  to  carry  out,  and  it  may 
easily  sink  into  a  principle  of  '  accommodation '  with 
evil,  but  it  is  the  most  ideal  conception  of  life  all  the 
same.  Plato's  theory  may  be  compared  with  the  idea 
upon  which  monasticism  rests,  that  a  man  can  only 
serve  God  by  avoiding  certain  temptations  which  tend 
to  prevent  him  from  serving  God,  and  that  therefore, 
as  it  has  sometimes  been  put,  a  man  should  live  outside 
the  world.  Those  who  hold  an  opposite  view  would  say 
it  is  a  harder  thing  and  a  higher  thing  to  serve  God  in 
the  world.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  remembered 
that  it  is  a  harder  thing,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
people  living  in  the  world  constantly  justify  by  their 
behaviour  those  who  would  seek  refuge  in  monasteries; 
for  they  fail  to  make  use  of  their  circumstances  in  the 
world.  Great  men  have  been  impressed  sometimes  by 
the  thought  that  most  people  make  the  worst  of  the 
circumstances  surrounding  them  in  ordinary  human 
society,  sometimes  by  the  thought  that  the  only  way 
to  mend  this  is  to  make  the  best  of  circumstances,  not  to 
evade  them. 
451  c  to  t.   To   come   to   the   various   sections   of  the    Book, 

Plato  first  discusses  the  question  whether  men  and 
women  arc  to  share  in  the  same  education  and  the 
same  pursuits  in  life.  He  begins  (451  c  to  452  E)  by 
laying  down  the  principle  that  this  question  must  be 
decided  with  reference  to  the  functions  which  women 
arc    qualified    to    fulfil    in   the    community.     The   name 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  171 

Guardians  which  he  has  given  to  the  rulers  (for  it  is 
the  women  of  the  ruling  class  alone  that  he  is  consider- 
ing) suggests  to  him  the  analogy  of  watch-dogs.  In 
their  case  sex  makes  no  difference  to  the  function  for 
which  they  are  employed  ;  is  there  any  good  reason  why 
it  should  in  the  case  of  human  beings  ?  If  there  is  not, 
then  women  must  be  trained  for  and  employed  in  the 
service  of  the  state,  like  men.  The  consequences  may  at 
first  appear  ridiculous  and  grotesque,  but  no  regard  must 
be  paid  to  this  feeling ;  everything  must  give  way  to  the 
one  consideration  of  the  good  of  the  community.  This 
is  the  principle  of  the  Republic  from  beginning  to  end. 
Plato  is  intensely  '  utilitarian '  in  the  sense  that  he  puts 
the  good  of  the  community  before  everything  else,  and 
we  have  in  this  passage  the  strongest  expression  of  his 
utilitarianism. 

Assuming  this  principle,  we  have  first  to  ask  (452  E 
to  456  c)  whether  it  is  possible  for  men  and  women  to 
share  in  the  same  occupations,  for  if  it  is  possible,  Plato 
has  no  doubt  that  it  is  expedient.  May  he  not  be  con- 
futed upon  this  point  out  of  his  own  mouth,  since  he  has 
all  along  insisted  upon  differentiation  of  functions  in  the 
state  and  attributed  all  evils  to  the  neglect  of  this 
principle  ?  This  argument,  he  says,  though  it  sounds  so 
logical,  is  only  superficially  logical.  It  is  a  specimen  of 
the  art,  not  of  reasoning  but  of  wrangling,  of  the  mere 
verbal  logic,  which  sticks  to  the  word  and  is  verbally 
consistent  but  disregards  real  differences  of  kind.  To 
say  that  men  and  women  are  different  and  must  therefore 
have  different  public  functions,  is  like  saying  that  long- 
haired men  and  bald  men  are  different  and  therefore 
cannot  both  be  shoemakers.  For  '  different '  is  a  wide 
and  vague  term,  and  the  point  in  question  is  not  whether 


172         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

men  and  women  are  different,  but  what  the  particular 
kind  of  difference  between  them  is,  and  whether  it  affects 
their  capacity  for  the  functions  we  have  in  view.  This 
is  a  question  of  fact.  Is  there,  asks  Plato,  anything 
for  which  men,  as  men,  and  women,  as  women,  arc 
respectively  gifted  by  nature?  He  answers  no;  men  in 
general  show  superiority  to  women  in  every  pursuit ; 
there  is  a  general  superiority  on  their  side,  but  no 
specific  natural  gift  on  either  side.  If  this  is  so,  we 
shall  expect  to  find  between  woman  and  woman  the 
same  varieties  of  natural  endowment  as  between  man 
and  man,  some  women  specially  fitted  for  philosophy, 
some  for  war,  and  so  on.  So  far  then  from  being 
contrary  to  nature,  the  state  of  things  now  being  ad- 
vocated is  the  natural  one,  and  the  existing  state  of 
things  is  unnatural. 

So  much  then  as  to  the  proposal  being  possible.  As 
to  its  expediency,  Plato  argues  (456  c  to  457  B)  that 
no  one  can  doubt  that  it  is  the  interest  of  the  state 
that  the  women  in  it  and  the  men  in  it  should  be  as 
good  as  possible,  and  that  if  a  certain  course  of  educa- 
tion produces  good  men,  it  will  also  produce  good 
women.  So  the  studies  and  pursuits  that  have  been 
prescribed  for  the  rulers  must  also  be  followed  by 
their  wives.  Here  Plato  repeats  the  principle  from 
which  he  started ;  there  is  only  one  thing  beautiful, 
that  which  does  good,  and  only  one  thing  ugly,  that 
which  docs  harm. 

In  this  discussion  the  consideration  of  the  '  rights 
of  women,'  the  modern  aspect  of  the  question,  docs  not 
appear  at  all  ;  it  is  a  question  solely  of  their  duties  to 
the  community,  and  Plato  does  not  make  his  proposal 
in  the  interest  of  women  as  a  class  whom  he  supposes 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  173 

to  be  wronged,  but  in  the  interest  of  the  community. 
Whether  his  proposal  would  have  struck  an  Athenian 
as  favourable  to  women  is  doubtful  ;  it  might  very  likely 
have  seemed  to  be  dragging  them  out  of  a  position  in 
which  they  would  rather  be  left.  Hardly  any  one  would 
dispute  Plato's  position  that  the  real  good  of  the  com- 
munity ought  to  prevail  over  every  other  consideration 
in  this  matter.  Most  people  too  would  accept  his  view 
of  what  the  good  of  the  community  is ;  they  would 
agree  that  the  more  co-operation  there  is  in  a  community 
and  the  more  every  one  contributes  to  the  common  life, 
the  better.  The  great  question  is  that  of  the  best  way 
to  carry  out  this  conception  of  public  good  in  this  case. 
Plato's  view  of  the  way  in  which  men  and  women  can 
co-operate  together  for  the  public  good  is  a  compara- 
tively narrow  view.  The  main  public  functions  he  has 
in  view  are  the  deliberative  and  administrative  and  the 
military  ;  but,  as  it  might  be  put  now,  there  are  thousands 
of  ways  of  contributing  to  the  service  of  society  besides 
being  a  Member  of  Parliament  or  a  soldier.  One  has, 
then,  to  distinguish  between  Plato's  principle  and  the 
particular  application  which  he  makes  of  it,  which  is  to 
a  certain  extent  determined  by  the  circumstances  of  his 
time.  His  position  that  the  more  co-operation  there  is 
between  men  and  women,  the  better,  is  irrefragable.  As 
to  his  application  of  it  he  has  himself  told  us  the  point  of 
view  from  which  it  must  be  criticized  ;  we  cannot  refute 
his  conclusion  by  merely  saying  that  men  and  women  are 
different,  we  require  to  consider  thoroughly  the  question 
in  what  respect  they  are  different.  Aristotle,  when  he 
deals  with  the  question,  starts  from  the  principle  that 
the  difference  between  men  and  women  is  one  which 
fundamentally  affects  their  social  functions ;  they  ought 


i74         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

not  to  do  the  same  things,  but  to  supplement  each  other1. 
From  the  point  of  view  which  he  adopts  2  it  may  also  be 
said  that  the  analogy  of  the  lower  animals  to  which  Plato 
appeals  would  prove  nothing,  for  even  granting  that  in 
certain  kinds  male  and  female  are  not  widely  differen- 
tiated in  character,  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  animals 
are  not  so  highly  developed  as  man  ;  in  man,  the  most 
highly  developed  animal,  the  differentiation  of  the  sexes 
is  greatest. 
457  b  to  2.  The  second    '  wave  '  of  the  argument   is  the  dis- 

cussion of  the  proposal  to  abolish  the  family  among  the 
ruling  class.  A  state  family  is  to  be  substituted  for 
it,  and  the  most  important  section  of  the  state  made 
literally  into  one  great  family.  Here,  as  often,  we  are 
apt  to  be  struck  by  the  incongruity  between  Plato's 
principle  and  the  machinery  by  which  he  proposes  to 
realize  it.  The  principle  he  appeals  to  is  as  high  a 
principle  as  a  man  could  have,  the  machinery  makes  one 
realize  forcibly  how  barbaric  much  of  Greek  civilization 
was3.  But  what  he  says  cannot  be  dismissed  with 
a  laugh  or  by  merely  saying  that  the  proposal  is  im- 
possible ;  if  he  does  go  wrong,  it  is  worth  while  to 
make  out  where  he  goes  wrong.     He  puts  forward  this 

1  Eth.  Nic.  VIII.  xii.  7.     Cf.  also  Politics,  1264  b,  i  sq. 

-  Hist.  An.  608  a,  21. 

:i  It  is  not  clear  whether  Plato  intended  unpromising  children  and 
children  born  unlawfully  to  be  put  to  death.  459  E  seems  to  mean  this, 
but  the  other  references  to  the  matter  (460  C  and  461  c)  are  obscure,  and 
in  the  summary  given  of  part  of  the  Republic  in  the  Timatus,  the  ex- 
pression used  is  tol  St  ruiv  icaicu/v  tls  tjjv  ak\rjv  \a0pa  UtaboTtov  ttuKiv  {Tint. 
19  a),  i.  e.  they  arc  to  be  brought  up  as  traders,  artisans,  &c.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  in  459  e  Tpi<pav  is  used  in  the  emphatic  sense  of  educating 
as  Guardians  and  Auxiliaries,  as  it  is  in  the  Timatus  (ibidem),  and  in 
that  case  the  sentence  docs  not  imply  that  their  children  should  be 
destroyed. 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  175 

proposal  upon  two  distinct  grounds.  First,  it  is  part 
of  a  system  for  regulating  the  number  of  children  born 
to  the  community,  and  still  more  for  ensuring  that  they 
shall  be  well  bred.  Secondly,  it  is  a  means  for  increasing 
the  common  spirit  or  esprit  dc  corps  of  the  community, 
by  extirpating  the  various  forms  of  selfishness  which  he 
conceives  to  arise  from  or  attach  to  the  present  institution 
of  the  family. 

(a)  First  then  (458  E  to  461  e)  he  takes,  as  before,  the 
analogy  of  the  lower  animals,  and  asks  why  we  should 
not  take  the  same  care  about  the  breeding  of  human 
beings  as  we  do  about  the  breeding  of  domestic  animals. 
If  the  breeding  of  animals  is  important,  much  more  so 
is  that  of  men  and  women.  Accordingly  he  devises  an 
elaborate  system  by  which  the  production  and  rearing 
of  children  of  the  ruling  class  is  to  be  brought  under 
state  control,  and  regulated  upon  scientific  principles. 
Nowadays  the  question  that  Plato  raises  occupies  many 
people's  minds  very  seriously.  It  is  evident  that  the 
conditions  under  which  members  of  the  community  are 
born  are  most  important,  and  the  evils  which  result  from 
entire  disregard  of  this  elementary  fact  are  enormous. 
But  to  what  extent  is  it  possible,  men  and  women 
being  what  they  are,  to  regulate  marriage  ?  Plato  ad- 
mits that  his  proposal  could  only  be  carried  out  by  an 
organized  system  of  deception,  without  which  it  would 
be  unendurable.  Now  the  reasons  which  would  make 
it  unendurable  to  those  who  had  to  submit  to  it  are 
really  sound  reasons.  On  the  one  hand,  there  never 
would  be  in  any  community  people  so  much  wiser  than 
the  rest  that  they  could  safely  be  trusted  to  regulate 
other  people's  lives  in  such  a  matter.  On  the  other 
hand,  to  place  men  under  such  a  control  would  be  to 


176         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

treat  them  like  animals,  to  ignore  their  reason.  To 
put  the  matter  in  another  way :  in  breeding  domestic 
animals  man  clearly  determines  the  purpose  for  which 
they  are  bred  ;  this  may  or  may  not  be  better  for  them, 
but  the  end  of  their  existence  is  in  man.  To  introduce 
such  a  scheme  into  a  human  society  would  imply  that 
certain  persons  in  the  community  were  to  determine  the 
end  for  which  other  persons,  the  majority,  were  to  live. 
Slavery  has  been  considered  the  greatest  wrong  that  can 
be  done  to  humanity,  because  it  is  treating  men  like 
lower  animals,  ignoring  the  right,  which  belongs  to 
every  reasonable  being,  to  make  his  own  life ;  and  the 
systematic  breeding  of  slaves  would  be  carrying  this 
wrong  to  the  extreme  point.  In  any  system  in  which 
one  set  of  men  assumed  such  an  authority  as  this  over 
the  lives  of  others,  we  should  feel  that  the  same  wrong 
was  being  committed. 

{b)  It  is  more  important  to  consider  the  second  argu- 
ment (461  e  to  466  d)  by  which  Plato  supports  his 
scheme,  for  in  this  he  sets  forth  in  the  most  striking 
way  his  whole  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  citizen 
to  the  state.  It  is  often  said  that  his  radical  fault  In 
this  and  in  his  preceding  argument  is  that  he  ignores 
individuality,  or  sacrifices  the  rights  of  the  individual 
to  the  community.  But  these  phrases  do  not  truly 
indicate  the  point  where  the  fault  lies,  or  the  advance 
which  has  been  made  since  Plato's  time.  We  have  not 
come  to  believe,  any  more  than  he  did,  that  an  individual 
has  a  right  to  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  himself  or 
his  property,  or  a  right  to  disregard  absolutely  the 
interests  of  the  community  in  respect  to  the  children 
he  produces.  Every  right  which  he  possesses  depends 
on    the    recognition    of  others   and    is    held    on    certain 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  177 

conditions ;  in  other  words,  it  implies  a  Koivoivia.  In- 
dividuality and  community,  we  ought  to  recognize,  are 
not  mutually  exclusive  things,  as  the  antithesis  of  '  the 
individual  and  the  community '  suggests.  The  contrast 
expressed  by  this  antithesis  is  really  a  contrast  between 
different  forms  of  individuality,  or  between  the  less 
comprehensive  and  the  more  comprehensive  ends  with 
which  a  man  identifies  himself.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  individual  in  the  abstract,  a  human  being  literally 
independent  of  all  others.  Nor,  conversely,  is  there  such 
a  thing  as  a  community  which  is  not  a  community  of 
individuals,  or  a  common  life  or  interest  which  is  not 
lived  or  shared  by  men  and  women.  Nor  is  individuality, 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  diminished  by  participation 
in  this  common  life  or  interest.  A  public  servant  who 
devotes  as  much  of  himself  as  he  can  to  the  public 
service  does  not  cease  to  be  an  individual ;  he  puts  as 
much  of  liimsclf  into  his  work  as  does  the  most  selfish 
miser.  When  a  man  so  completely  throws  himself  into 
the  common  interest  that  he  can  be  said  to  live  for 
others,  he  does  not  lose  his  individuality  ;  rather  his 
individuality  becomes  a  greater  one.  In  this  sense  it 
may  be  said  that  what  Plato  had  in  view  was  not  the 
abolition  of  individuality,  but  the  raising  of  it  to  the 
highest  possible  pitch  through  esprit  de  corps. 

It  would  be  instructive  in  this  connexion  to  examine 
two  common  expressions,  the  phrase  esprit  de  corps,  and 
the  saying  that  '  corporations  have  no  conscience,'  which 
seems  to  contradict  the  notions  that  we  attach  to  esprit 
de  corps.  By  esprit  de  corps  we  mean  a  spirit  which 
is  felt  and  possessed  by  individual  men  ;  a  member  of 
a  regiment  who  is  stimulated  by  it  does  not  feel  it  to  be 
something  outside  himself.     As  we  all  know,  a  man  at 

VOL.  II.  N 


178         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

times  does  in  the  strength  of  this  spirit  things  which 
he  could  never  do  without  it,  and  when  he  does  so  he 
certainly  is  not  losing  his  individuality.  On  this  fact 
Plato  has  seized.  He  practically  says  that  the  ideal 
of  human  life  would  be  realized  if  every  man  lived 
perpetually  in  the  feeling  which  all  men  under  great 
excitement  at  great  national  crises  do  feel.  We  may  say 
that  this  is  impossible,  but  then  so  is  every  ideal,  and 
it  is  none  the  less  noble  an  ideal  for  that.  Aristotle 
however  says  that  Plato's  scheme  for  abolishing  the 
family  and  re-creating  it  on  a  larger  scale  would  not 
accomplish  the  result  it  aims  at  at  all.  It  would  not 
really  re-create  family  feeling  on  a  larger  scale ;  the 
family  affection  which  it  would  diffuse  among  members 
of  the  community  would  be  but  a  '  watery  affection ' 
(vbafjrjs  (jyiXCa)1.  This  is  a  true  enough  criticism,  and  it 
brings  us  to  the  considerations  which  have  made  people 
say  that  corporations  have  no  conscience.  It  is  an 
undoubted  and  humiliating  truth  that  when  a  number 
of  men  act  together  their  sense  of  responsibility  is  often 
weakened  instead  of  being  intensified.  Here  again  the 
fact  of  acting  together  with  others  does  not  destroy 
a  person's  individuality,  it  simply  means  that  he  so  far 
assumes  a  new  individuality  ;  in  the  supposed  case  this 
new  individuality  is  lower  than  his  customary  indi- 
viduality, in  the  cases  mentioned  before  it  is  higher. 
Such  observations  as  '  Corporations  have  no  conscience,' 
or  '  What  is  everybody's  business  is  nobody's  business,' 
bring  out  an  important  fact — that  human  nature  is 
limited  in  the  degree  to  which  it  can  really  lead  a 
common  life.  What  is  more,  if  human  nature  is  over- 
strained in  this  way,  it  docs  indeed  live  a  common  life 

•   Politics,  1^6^  Bj  15.      Sec  also  the  whole  passage  beginning  1261  B,  33. 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  179 

in  a  sense,  but  it  does  so  at  the  cost  of  its  own  higher 
individuality.  When  it  is  said  that  Plato  ignores  the 
rights  of  the  individual,  the  real  point  is  that  he  has  not 
seized  upon  this  half  of  the  truth. 

We  may  now  apply  this  remark  to  the  particular  case 
of  the  family.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  various 
evils  which  Plato  associates  with  the  family  are  all  to 
some  extent  real.  He  regards  the  family  as  the  centre 
of  mean  and  petty  selfishness.  So  it  often  is.  Take  for 
example  what  is  implied  in  our  word  '  nepotism,'  or 
consider  how  many  of  the  greatest  evils  in  history  have 
been  due  to  dynastic  interests,  which  are  simply  family 
interests  on  a  large  scale.  Nowhere  does  the  selfishness 
of  man  come  out  more  obviously  than  in  matters  con- 
nected with  the  institution  of  the  family.  But  also 
nowhere  does  the  unselfishness  of  man  come  out  more 
obviously.  Some  of  the  noblest  things  that  have  ever 
been  done,  as  well  as  some  of  the  basest,  have  been 
associated  with  the  love  of  man  and  woman  or  with  the 
love  of  parent  and  child.  In  fact  the  individuality  of 
men  here  asserts  itself  in  its  intensest  form,  both  for 
good  and  for  evil.  That  being  so,  the  problem  raised 
by  Plato's  proposal  is  this :  there  being  certain  elementary 
and  ineradicable  instincts  in  human  nature,  capable  at 
once  of  being  the  most  selfish  and  the  most  unselfish, 
what  is  the  best  way  to  deal  with  them  and  with  the 
institutions  which  are  their  result  ?  Plato  says  that  it 
is  best  in  the  first  place  to  remove  as  far  as  possible 
all  opportunities  for  the  selfish  development  of  these 
instincts,  and  in  the  second  place  to  give  them  scope  in 
such  a  sphere  and  on  such  a  scale  that  they  must  be 
unselfish.  We  might  answer :  The  latter  part  of  this 
idea   is   impossible,  and    the    attempt    to   carry   it    out 

N  2 


180         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

would  only  result  in  the  '  watery  affection  '  that  Aristotle 
describes ;  the  right  way  to  deal  with  the  instincts  which 
create  the  family  is  not  to  attempt  to  resolve  them  into 
something  higher,  but  to  make  the  best  of  them  as  they 
are  and  use  them  as  a  preparation  and  education  for 
something  higher :  we  cannot  make  the  state  a  gigantic 
family,  but  we  can  make  the  life  of  the  family  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  service  of  the  state  ;  for  the  family  may  be 
an  institution  in  which  people  learn  from  their  earliest 
years  an  unselfishness  which  is  not  limited  by  the  family. 

Aristotle  in  his  criticism  of  Plato's  communism  puts 
the  most  obvious  and  far-reaching  objection  when  he 
says  that  Plato's  fundamental  fallacy  is  an  exaggerated 
conception  of  the  virtue  of  unity.  This  criticism,  how- 
ever, would  be  expressed  more  truly  by  saying  that 
Plato  has  a  one-sided  and  defective  conception  of  unity ; 
he  does  not  realize  enough  that  unity  in  human  society 
can  only  be  obtained  through  diversity.  The  ideal  state 
of  society  would  be  one  in  which  there  was  the  greatest- 
scope  for  individual  diversity,  and  in  spite  of  that  the 
greatest  unity. 

To  return  to  Plato's  demand  that  the  production  of 
children  should  be  regulated,  perhaps  most  people  who 
thought  about  it  would  agree  with  him  that  the  production 
of  children  is  one  of  the  most  important  factors  affecting 
the  welfare  of  the  community,  that  it  ought  therefore  to 
be  governed  by  the  best  knowledge  that  can  be  had 
about  it,  and  that  individual  members  of  the  community 
ought  to  feel  their  responsibility  in  this  more  than  in 
most  things.  Hut  Plato  goes  on  to  say  that  the  way 
to  accomplish  his  end  is  to  entrust  the  regulation  of  the 
matter  to  a  few  highly  trained  and  all -powerful  persons. 
Now  we,  on  the  contrary,  should  probably  all  agree  that 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  181 

Plato's  object  can  only  be  accomplished  in  one  way, 
namely,  by  the  diffusion  throughout  the  community  of 
that  knowledge  and  that  sense  of  responsibility  which 
Plato  would  have  concentrated  in  a  few  people.  This  of 
course  could  only  be  a  matter  of  slow  growth. 

At  this  point  in  the  argument  there  follows  a  digression  466  d  to 
upon  the  usages  of  war,  by  which  Socrates  evades  for  471 
a  time  the  question  whether  such  a  state  of  society  as  he 
has  sketched  is  possible.  He  first  describes  how  children 
are  to  be  brought  up  to  be  soldiers  (466  D  to  467  e),  and 
then  treats  of  the  bearing  of  citizens  towards  one  another 
and  towards  their  enemies  (468  a  to  47 1  c).  There  are 
here  several  curious  anticipations  of  mediaeval  chivalry. 
Young  people  are  to  serve  as  squires ;  love  is  made 
a  motive  to  military  prowess ;  poetry  is  to  be  the 
handmaid  of  war ;  and  there  is  a  general  fusion  of 
sentiment  and  policy1.  Again,  hero-worship,  to  which 
emphatic  recognition  is  given,  takes  the  form  of  a  regular 
canonization  of  great  men  2,  in  which  the  Delphic  oracle 
may  be  said  to  take  an  analogous  position  to  the  Church, 
as  the  ultimate  authority.  The  Delphic  oracle  is  pro- 
minent in  the  Republic  ;  Plato  conceives  it  to  be  a  centre 
of  unity  to  the  Greek  race,  and  one  of  the  agencies  which 
counteract  its  disintegration.  Here  the  oracle  is  made 
to  regulate  to  some  extent  the  usages  of  war3.  Plato 
lays  down  that  no  one  is  ever  to  allow  himself  to  be 
taken  alive  in  battle,  and  that  any  one  who  disgraces 
himself  in  battle  is  to  be  degraded  to  a  lower  social 


1  Cf.  especially  468  B  with  458  E  ('We  will  make  the  nuptial  union  as 
sacred  as  it  can  be,  and  it  will  be  most  sacred  when  it  is  most  useful '). 

2  Thuc.  V.  11. 

3  Of  such  canonization  as  Plato  speaks  of  there  is  a  famous  historical 
instance  in  the  worship  of  Brasidas  at  Amphipolis. 


1 82  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

class.  As  to  the  treatment  of  enemies,  no  Greek,  he 
insists,  ought  ever  to  be  enslaved  by  a  Greek.  He 
has  in  mind  throughout  the  unity  of  the  Greek  race, 
and  the  natural  antagonism  of  Greece  as  a  whole  to 
the  barbarians.  This  feeling  determines  his  attitude 
towards  the  usages  of  war,  and  makes  him  forbid  not 
only  the  enslavement  of  Greeks  but  other  usages  which 
tend  to  perpetuate  and  intensify  enmity  between  Greeks, 
the  offering  of  arms  in  temples,  the  ravaging  of  the  land, 
and  the  burning  of  houses.  The  war  of  Greeks  against 
Greeks  should  be  regarded  not  as  legitimate  war  but 
as  civil  (oratri?)1,  for  the  Greeks  are  one  race.  What 
he  says  reminds  us  that,  as  we  find  in  Thucydides, 
the  Peloponnesian  War  acquired,  as  it  went  on,  more 
and  more  of  the  character  of  a  social  war  between 
class  and  class,  and  that  horrible  results  followed  from 
this.  Some  of  the  principles  which  Plato  lays  down 
appear  to  have  been  recognized  by  the  Spartans.  The 
spoiling  of  the  dead  beyond  a  certain  point  was  for- 
bidden ;  so  in  Plutarch's  ApopJithegmata  Laconica- 
we  have  a  saying,  attributed  to  Lycurgus,  which  closely 
resemblcs  what  Plato  says  upon  the  subject.  The 
Spartans  also  differed  from  the  rest  of  Greece  in  not 
hanging  up  arms  as  offerings  in  temples,  which  again 
is  the  subject  of  a  saying  of  Cleomcncs  in  the  Apoph- 
tlicgmata  Laconical.  The  refusal  of  leave  for  the  van- 
quished to  bury  their  dead  was  very  rare  in  Greece 
and  a  sign  of  bitter  hatred.  Leave  was  refused  to 
the    Phocians    in    the    Second    Sacred    War  (B.C.  353). 

1  Cf.  Callicratidaa  In  Ken.  Hell.  i.  0.  1  1 

"  p.  228  K. 

:'  p.  224  is.    The  reason  there  given  foi   the  practice  1-  very  differenl 

Ml  PI 


COMMUNISM    AND    USAGES    OF    WAR  183 

Lysander  also  was  reproached  for  leaving  the  Athenians 
unburied  at  Aegos  Potami. 

Having  dealt  with  the  usages  of  war  between  Greek 
and  Greek,  Plato  concludes  in  a  very  Greek  way  by 
putting  the  barbarians  in  quite  a  different  category ; 
to  them  Greeks  may  behave  in  war  as  they  now  do 
to  one  another.  It  is  a  striking  instance  of  how  limited 
a  conception  some  of  the  greatest  men  have  had  of  the 
rights  of  humanity. 


IX.    PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE   STATE 

[Republic,  V.  471  c  to  VI.  502  c] 

471  c  to  After  this  interlude  Socrates  can  no  longer  postpone 

meeting  the  third  and  greatest  of  the  '  three  great  waves ' 
of  the  argument :  All  that  has  been  said  of  the  ideal 
state  is  excellent,  and  we  can  say  a  great  deal  more 
about  it  ;  but  is  it  possible  ? 

Before  revealing  the  paradoxical  secret  which  he  has 
got  in  store,  Socrates  makes  some  preliminary  remarks 
on  the  relation  of  ideals  generally  to  reality.  An  ideal, 
he  tells  us,  is  none  the  worse  for  being  unrealizable. 
We  started  with  asking,  What  is  justice  ?  and  that 
means,  What  is  justice  in  itself  or  as  such?  Now  we 
must  not  expect  any  human  being  whom  we  call  just  to 
be,  so  to  say,  embodied  justice,  but  must  be  content  to 
regard  justice  as  a  -napdhtiyjxa  or  pattern,  to  which  the 
justcst  man  approximates  most  nearly,  but  only  approxi- 
mates. In  other  words  there  will  always  be,  in  Plato's 
phraseology,  a  certain  difference  between  things  as  they 
are  in  themselves  (to.  Spra),  and  things  as  they  come 
into  existence  in  our  actual  experience  (ra  yiyvo^(va) l. 

1  Cf,  for  example,  485  B. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  185 

The  same  difference  may  be  expressed  as  the  difference 
between  the  ideal  and  the  actual.  Justice  being  of  the 
nature  of  a  pattern  for  human  action,  we  may  say  boldly 
that  what  we  decided  to  be  the  ideal  community  is  the 
truth  of  human  life ;  true  human  life  would  be  as  we 
have  described  it.  All  actual  forms  of  human  life  are 
to  a  certain  extent  falsifications  of  the  truth ;  they  fall 
short  of  it.  When  we  are  asked  to  show  the  possibility 
of  an  ideal,  we  must  first  lay  down  that  no  ideal  is 
actually  possible,  and  that  to  expect  it  to  be  so  is  to 
misunderstand  it.  For  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
action  should  get  less  hold  of  the  truth  than  words 
(Aefis),  or,  as  we  should  rather  say,  than  thought.  This 
is  a  general  principle  applicable  to  all  ideals.  Accord- 
ingly in  the  Laivs,  in  looking  back  to  the  Republic,  Plato 
still  insists  that  the  true  pattern  was  what  he  had  there 
drawn  ;  but  he  says  that  it  was  only  practicable  for  gods 
or  children  of  gods l.  In  the  Republic  he  abates  nothing 
of  his  ideal ;  he  is  simply  content  to  exhibit  it  as  an 
ideal ;  when  challenged  as  to  its  possibility,  he  feels 
bound  to  show,  not  how  human  nature  can  realize  this 
ideal,  but  how  it  can  approximate  to  the  realization  of  it. 
This  task  resolves  itself  into  the  question,  What  is  it 
in  human  life,  as  it  is,  which  prevents  it  from  realizing 
its  ideal,  and  what  is  the  least  change  in  things,  as  they 
are,  which  would  enable  it  to  do  so?  (It  is  implied  that 
the  questions  of  the  ideal  good  of  man  and  of  the  source 
of  evil  in  man  are  really  the  same.)  There  is  one  change, 
not  a  small  one  but  still  possible,  which  would  bring  about 
the  ideal  of  human  life ;  and,  again,  there  is  one  great 
source  of  evil  in  human  life.     The  change  would  consist 

1  Laws,  V.  739  B  sqq.    Plato  there  proceeds  to  show  what  he  thinks  tht 
nearest  practicable  approximation  to  the  institutions  of  Rep.  IV.  and  V. 


186         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

in  making  philosophy  sovereign,  or,  in  other  words,  in 
the  union  of  political  power  and  philosophical  insight ; 
and  the  radical  source  of  all  the  evils  of  mankind  is  the 
divorce  between  these  two  factors.  This  union  of  political 
power  and  philosophical  insight  would  involve  negatively 
the  exclusion  from  power  of  most  of  those  who  now 
have  it,  and  from  philosophy  of  most  of  those  who  now 
pursue  it. 

This  negative  requirement  is  of  course  what  will 
excite  most  opposition  and  outcry.  It  touches  at  their 
tenderest  point  most  of  the  leading  men  of  the  time, 
whether  political  leaders  or  leaders  of  thought ;  and  this 
explains  why  in  what  follows  Plato  is  at  such  pains  to 
defend  his  position.  In  his  defence  he  addresses  himself 
rather  to  the  leaders  of  thought  than  to  the  leaders  of 
politics.  He  is  more  impressed  by  the  evils  which 
result  from  the  waste  or  wrong  use  of  speculative  genius 
than  by  those  which  result  from  the  comparative  ignor- 
ance of  governors.  Book  VI  is  full  of  the  tragedy  which 
is  continually  going  on  in  the  ruin  or  uselessness  of  the 
most  gifted  men  ;  for  by  philosophers  he  does  not  under- 
stand merely  what  we  understand,  he  means  men  of 
genius  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  ;  and  whereas  we 
mean  by  '  philosopher '  a  man  with  one  special  kind  of 
gift,  his  description  of  a  philosopher  enumerates  all  the 
qualities  which  go  to  make  up  a  great  man. 

From  this  point  to  the  end  of  Book  VII  there  is  no  real 
break  in  the  argument.  It  is  a  continuous  development 
of  what  is  involved  in  the  position  just  laid  down,  (i) 
The  first  obvious  section  is  that  in  which  it  is  shown  what 
is  meant  by  philosophers  (474  1:  to  the  end  of  Book  V). 
(2)  The  second  section  (VI.  4S4  a  to  487  a)  shows  that, 
if  this  is  what  we  understand  by  philosophers,  they  should 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  187 

logically  be  the  only  persons  fit  to  rule,  because  all  the 
gifts  and  excellences,  required  of  the  perfect  man,  follow 
from  the  conception  of  the  philosophic  nature.  These 
two  sections  together  put  before  us  Plato's  ideal  of  the 
philosophic  nature,  and  show  us  what  philosophy  ought 
to  mean ;  and  accordingly  (3)  the  next  section  gives  us 
the  converse  of  the  picture  and  shows  us  what  philosophy 
does  mean  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Here  (487  a  to  497  a) 
Plato  tries  to  explain  the  admitted  and  glaring  contrast 
between  the  ideal  of  the  philosophic  nature  and  the 
actual  facts  about  it.  The  result  is  to  show  that  these 
facts  are  due  to  the  want  of  adjustment  between  the 
philosophic  nature  and  its  environment,  that  it  is  society 
itself  which  is  to  blame  for  these  facts,  for  society  corrupts 
or  makes  useless  its  noblest  natures.  (4)  The  next  step 
therefore  is  to  point  out  how  society  can  adjust  itself  to 
philosophy,  and  how  the  environment  of  the  philosophic 
nature  is  to  be  made  favourable  (497  A  to  502  c).  This 
finally  leads  us  round  again  to  (5)  the  question  of  educa- 
tion ;  for  the  adjustment  of  the  soul  to  its  surroundings 
and  of  its  surroundings  to  it,  is  a  question  of  education 
in  the  large  sense  of  that  word.  Therefore,  starting  with 
a  new  and  enlarged  conception  of  the  philosophic  nature, 
we  have  to  ask  what  education  implies  over  and  above 
the  education  of  ^ovctlki]  which  has  already  been  con- 
sidered. The  nurture  of  the  philosophic  nature  through 
a  training  in  the  sciences,  which  leads  eventually  to  the 
study  of  what  we  should  call  philosophy,  is  the  subject  of 
a  section  extending  from  VI.  502  C  to  VII.  534  E.  The 
philosophic  nature  in  its  essence  is  that  in  man  which 
seeks  to  understand  things,  which  draws  him  to  ask 
questions  of  the  world  about  him  and  to  try  to  find 
himself  at  home  in  it.     The  sciences  represent  the  efforts 


188         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

of  man  to  understand  the  world,  and  by  being  trained  in 
them  the  soul  comes  to  understand  the  world.  They 
are  the  product  of  the  philosophic  spirit,  just  as  art  again 
is  the  product  of  it  in  another  phase  or  stage ;  and  as,  in 
the  part  of  education  previously  described,  art  was  used 
to  be  the  nurture  of  the  soul,  so  here  the  sciences  are 
used  to  be  the  nurture  of  the  soul  in  another  stage. 
(6)  The  last  section  of  the  argument  {535  A  to  the  end 
of  Book  VII)  accordingly  deals  with  the  practical 
application  of  this  idea  and  the  actual  distribution  of  the 
educational  life  of  the  Guardians,  the  order  of  studies 
and  the  time  spent  on  each. 
.;74i;to  t.    First   then  we   come    to    Plato's    analysis   of  the 

Book  V  philosophic  nature,  intended  to  justify  the  statement  that 
it  alone  is  fit  to  rule.  It  is  a  passage  in  which  we  must 
be  careful  not  to  jump  at  conclusions,  and  must  be 
content  with  what  Plato  actually  says. 

He  first  treats  of  the  generic  character  of  the  philo- 
sophic spirit,  and  then  gives  us  its  differentia,  that  is, 
what  distinguishes  it  from  other  spirits  which  bear 
a  resemblance  to  it. 

The  generic  character  of  the  philosopher  is  deduced 
(474];  to  475  k)  from  the  simple  meaning  of  the  word; 
he  is  a  lover  of  something,  namely  of  'wisdom.'  In 
English  the  word  has  lost  its  etymological  meaning. 
'  Speculative,'  in  a  general  sense,  is  a  more  appropriate 
word  than  'philosophic'  to  describe  what  is  meant  by 
(/jt\o'o-o0o?,  though  it  scarcely  covers  the  same  ground. 
Probably  in  Plato's  time  all  that  the  word  necessarily 
implied  in  ordinary  use  was  ;i  sort  of  higher  culture  and 
a  claim  to  pursue  some  subject  in  a  rather  higher  spirit 
than  was  common,  so  that  the  most  different  men, 
a  statesman,  an  artist,  a  man  of  science,  might  be  said 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  189 

to  be  philosophic  (</HAo<ro</>eif),  not  necessarily  with  the 
meaning  that  they  speculated  or  theorized  on  their 
subject,  but  simply  in  so  far  as  they  followed  it  in 
a  higher  spirit.  We  sometimes  use  the  word  in  this 
sense  still;  thus  we  might  speak  of  a  'philosophic' 
doctor  or  lawyer,  meaning  one  who  pursued  his  subject 
for  its  own  sake,  and  who  went  beyond  the  ordinary 
range  of  it.  Plato  fixes  at  once  on  that  element  in  the 
word  which  in  our  use  of  the  word  '  philosopher '  we  tend 
to  leave  out  of  sight,  the  element  which  signifies  emotion. 
'  Philosopher '  means  somebody  peculiarly  fond  of  a  certain 
thing.  What  does  this  fondness  imply?  When  we 
characterize  a  man  as  being  essentially  a  man  fond  of 
a  certain  thing,  as  a  man  peculiarly  susceptible  to  beauty 
(e/jcouKo's),  or  a  born  lover  of  distinction  (^tAort/xo?),  or 
a  man  with  a  natural  taste  for  wine  ((plkoivos),  or  the  like, 
we  mean  that  he  has  a  sort  of  indiscriminate  enthusiasm 
or  appetite  for  the  particular  thing  to  which  he  is  thus 
susceptible.  The  man  susceptible  to  beauty  is  normally 
and  perpetually  in  love  ;  accordingly  a  whole  vocabulary 
has  literally  been  invented  in  order  to  enable  such 
persons  to  describe  the  object  to  which  they  are  sus- 
ceptible, and  to  leave  none  of  it  unmarked.  There  is 
to  them  a  certain  charm  in  youth  which  they  will  do 
anything  not  to  lose.  So  with  the  lover  of  distinction  ; 
he  has  an  indiscriminate  appetite  for  honours ;  if  he 
cannot  be  a  general  he  will  be  a  lieutenant ;  he  will  be 
anything  rather  than  not  get  some  title.  (We  must  not 
suppose  that  in  this  description  Plato  ignores  facts  about 
which  he  is  silent.  He  has  emphasized  one  side  of 
enthusiasm  for  a  given  object,  and  with  perfect  truth  ; 
but  he  has  omitted  to  remark  that  all  these  tempera- 
ments are   peculiarly  critical  as  well  as  indiscriminate. 


igo         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

The  undoubted  and  curious  fact  is  that,  when  a  person 
is  intensely  fond  of  a  given  thing,  he  is  peculiarly  critical 
about  it.  In  the  case  of  wine,  and  again  in  the  case  of 
ambition,  this  is  obviously  so..  Yet,  as  in  these  cases, 
the  good  critic  must  be  enthusiastic  about  what  he 
criticizes.  When  we  call  a  man  by  a  name  which 
implies  that  fondness  for  a  certain  thing  is  of  the  essence 
of  him,  we  ought  to  mean  that  this  fondness  is  in  the 
first  instance  an  indiscriminate  appetite.  The  best  analogy 
to  express  what  he  should  be  is  the  most  homely ;  he 
should  be  like  a  man  who  has  a  good  and  strong  diges- 
tion, he  should  be  the  opposite  of  squeamish.) 

Now  to  apply  this  to  the  philosophic  nature.  We 
must  not  say  that  a  man  is  of  a  philosophic  nature  unless 
he  has  this  indiscriminate  appetite  for  fxad^ixara.  We  are 
here  again  at  a  loss  for  a  word  ;  for  '  knowledge '  is  not 
general  enough.  Plato  includes  under  the  title  $iAo/za0eis, 
people  whom  we  should  certainly  not  include  under  the 
title  '  seekers  of  knowledge '  ;  he  includes  theatre-goers, 
lovers  of  art,  anybody  to  whom  it  is  a  keen  pleasure  to 
exercise  his  eyes  and  cars.  MavOdvtiv  means,  in  fact, 
any  exercise  of  mind  through  which  we  get  a  new 
experience. 

We  have  so  far  arrived  at  this,  that  the  philosopher 
is  a  person  who  has  a  boundless  curiosity  for  new 
experience  ;  and  this  is  his  generic  character.  But  it 
is  obvious  that  we  cannot  say  that  every  one  that  has 
this  character  is  a  born  philosopher.  It  is  shared  by 
many  whom  we  should  not  call  philosophers;  by  theatre- 
goers, concert-goers,  and  intelligent  artisans.  They  have 
some  affinity  with  the  philosopher,  in  having  this  indis- 
criminate pleasure  in  exercising  their  minds  ;  but  we  must 
ask,  What  is  it  that  differentiates  the  philosopher  from 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  191 

those  who  share  this  generic  character  ?  The  philosopher 
proper  is  not  one  who  likes  looking  at  everything  new, 
but  one  who  likes  looking  at  the  truth  l. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  the  truth,  the  specific  object 
of  the  philosopher's  vision,  and  how  are  we  to  distinguish 
the  truth  ?  Plato  proceeds  (475  E  to  end  of  Book  V)  in  a 
preliminary  and  general  way  to  answer  this  question,  and 
his  answer  brings  before  us,  though  in  a  statement  which, 
he  implies,  is  only  a  brief  resume  of  something  already 
familiar  to  his  hearers,  his  conception  of  '  forms '  or 
'  ideas '  (dbr],  elsewhere  iSe'ai). 

The  assumption  with  which  he  starts,  is  simply  that 
there  are  distinct  kinds  of  things  or  forms  of  being  ; 
justice,  for  instance,  is  absolutely  distinct  from  injustice, 
good  from  evil,  beauty  from  ugliness.  Further,  when- 
ever we  speak  of  a  'kind'  or  'form'  of  thing,  as  of  justice 
or  beauty,  we  mean  that  it  is  one;  that  there  is  a  likeness 
in  all  the  things  that  belong  to  this  kind  ;  that  justice, 
for  example,  in  however  many  things  it  may  occur, 
remains  one  and  the  same  justice.  Each  distinct  form 
or  kind  is  thus  a  unity.  But,  further,  each  distinct  kind 
of  thing  appears  as  a  great  many  things ;  or,  as  he  puts 
it,  these  forms  or  kinds  '  communicate  with  one  another 
and  with  bodies  and  with  actions';  and  thus  each  appears 
as  a  multiplicity.  What  are  called  '  forms '  then  are,  in 
the  first  place,  the  elements  of  unity  in  the  manifold 
objects  or  things  which  we  apprehend  by  the  senses. 
Now  if  we  go  back  to  the  people  who  like  using  their 
eyes  and  ears,  and  from  whom  the  philosopher  has 
to  be  distinguished,  we  find  that  the  objects  on  which 
they  exercise  their  minds  are  just  these  manifold  things, 

1  Toil?  rr)s  a\T]6eias  (pi\o6edfj.ova.s, — OtaoQai  is  the  word  used  of  spectators 
at  the  theatre. 


i92         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

voices,  colours,  figures,  not  beauty  as  such,  but  this,  that, 
and  the  other  beautiful  thing.  Whereas  the  philosopher 
is  the  man  who  is  able  to  distinguish  the 'kind'  or  'form,' 
and  who  loves  to  do  so. 

In  order  to  characterize  these  states  of  mind  further, 
Plato  goes  on  to  show  (476  d)  that  the  philosopher  has 
knowledge  (yvanrj),  while  the  mere  (fuXofxadijs  has  only 
'opinion'  (bo^a)1.  Now  when  we  say  that  we  'know' 
a  thing  we  imply  that  it  has  being — in  plain  English. 
that  it  is ;  and  the  being  of  a  thing  is  exactly  conter- 
minous with  its  knowableness  ;  if  you  ask  what  anything 
really  is,  the  answer  must  be  that  it  is  all  that  is  known 
about  it.  On  the  other  hand  what  is  the  negation  of 
being  is  also  the  negation  of  knowableness ;  it  is  nothing, 
nonentity — not  a  mysterious  something  beyond  what 
we  know,  but  just  nothing,  of  which  we  can  say  nothing 
and  think  nothing.  What  answers  to  this  on  the  part 
of  the  mind,  as  knowledge  answers  to  being,  is  utter 
ignorance.  (Ignorance  in  the  full  sense  is  blankness  of 
the  mind,  and  we  must  not  read  this  passage  as  if  Plato 
spoke  of  ignorance  as  a  faculty,  having  an  object  called 
'  not-being ' ;  ignorance  is  the  negation  of  faculty,  and 
its  object  is  no  object.)  Now  in  ordinary  language  we 
distinguish  knowing  from  mere  thinking  or  opinion,  which 
lies  between  these  two  extremes  of  perfect  knowledge  or 
mental  illumination  and  perfect  ignorance  or  darkness. 
And  knowledge  and  opinion  arc  both  called  powers  or 
faculties  (Bwcijueis).  How  do  wc  distinguish  one  power 
from  another?  It  is  not  something  that  we  can  sec, 
distinguished  by  colour  or  shape  ;  wc  distinguish  it  only 
by  what  it  does,  by  its  province  and  operation.     Know- 

1  Besides  what  we  call  opinions,  hli^a  covers  what  we  should  call 
perceptions  and  even  fi  1  lings, 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  193 

ledge  and  opinion,  we  agree,  are  different  powers ;  they 
must  therefore  have  different  objects  or  operations,  or 
produce  different  effects.  The  object  of  knowledge  is 
what  is ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  operation  of  knowledge 
is  to  produce  consciousness  of  what  is.  Opinion  also 
must  have  an  object ;  we  cannot  think  nothing.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  cannot  have  the  same  object  as  knowledge. 
It  results  that  the  object  of  opinion  must  both  be  and 
not  be.  We  can  neither  say  that  it  is  in  the  full  sense, 
nor  that  it  is  not  in  the  full  sense  ;  for  if  we  could,  opinion 
would  not  be  different  both  from  knowledge  and  from 
ignorance. 

With  these  results  let  us  turn  back  (479  a)  to  the 
distinction  we  found  between  the  manifold  objects 
which  present  themselves  to  ordinary  perception,  and 
the  distinct  forms  or  elements  of  unity  which  underlie 
them.  There  are  those,  as  we  saw,  who  like  to  use 
their  minds  on  the  audible,  visible,  tangible  world  and 
its  multiplicity  ;  this  they  take  to  be  the  reality,  and  it 
is  the  sole  reality  that  they  believe  in.  And  there  are 
those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  assume  the  reality  of  what 
Plato  calls  forms  (of  some  principle,  for  instance,  which 
constitutes  beauty  itself,  or  justice  itself),  in  which  the 
manifold  objects  participate,  but  which  none  of  them  is. 
If  we  asked  people  of  the  former  sort  to  tell  us  what 
is  beauty,  justice,  weight,  they  would  answer  by  pointing 
out  beautiful  objects,  just  actions,  heavy  things.  But  if 
we  take  any  one  of  these  many  things,  and  observe  it  in 
a  different  relation  or  position,  we  find  that,  in  Plato's 
language,  it  plays  double,  or  exhibits  opposite  qualities. 
Take  a  beautiful  thing  and  put  it  in  a  different  situation, 
and  it  is  easily  made  ugly ; — this  is  most  obvious  in  the 
case  of  colours.      Take  a  just  thing,  an  act  or  a  law  ; 

VOL.  II.  O 


194         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

do  the  act  or  apply  the  law  under  different  circumstances, 
and  it  is  easy  to  make  it  unjust.  Take  a  heavy  thing, 
and  it  will  be  light  when  compared  with  what  is  heavier 
still.  Thus  what  Plato  says  is  illustrated  alike  from 
the  spheres  of  art,  morality,  and  nature.  Each  of  the 
many  things  that  come  under  any  one  category  holds 
of  opposite  qualities  ;  there  seems  no  reason  for  saying 
it  is  this  rather  than  that ;  we  can  most  simply  express 
its  nature  by  saying  that  it  is  both.  It  both  is  and  is 
not,  i.  e.  is  and  is  not  beautiful,  is  and  is  not  heavy. 
It  answers  then  to  what  has  been  said  of  the  object  of 
opinion.  These  manifold  objects,  which  we  point  to 
if  asked  what  anything  is,  are  the  very  objects  which 
the  bulk  of  mankind  hold  to  be  the  only  reality. 
Opinion  is  thus  the  state  of  mind  of  most  people  on 
most  things.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  this  state  of  mind  does 
not  correspond  to  what  we  expect  knowledge  to  be,  nor 
its  object  to  what  we  expect  reality  to  be.  We  may 
therefore  say  generally  that  what  appears  as  the  reality 
to  ordinary  people  in  their  ordinary,  received  opinions 
about  most  things x  is  '  tumbling  about '  between  '  what 
is'  (the  full  reality)  and  'what  is  not'  (what  has  no 
reality  at  all). 

Returning  to  the  point  at  which  we  started,  we  have 
defined  the  philosophic  nature  as  that  which  loves  to 
look  at  the  truth,  and  this  is  now  found  to  mean  that 
the  philosophic  nature  is  always  looking  for  unity  in  the 
manifold  or  variety  of  which  our  ordinary  experience  is 
made  up.  For  our  ordinary  experience  is  emphatically 
contained  in  a  great  number  of  separate  objects  ;  but, 
when  we  think,  we  cannot  but  see  that  these  many  things 
do  not  satisfy  our  idea  of  complete  reality,  and  we  have 

1  TSi  twv  iroWuJv  TtoWd.  v^jxi^a  icaXov  n  vipi  ical  twv  aWuv,  479  D. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  195 

to  seek  for  some  principle  or  law  or  unity  underlying 
these  many  objects.  Everybody,  we  may  remark,  admits 
this  to  some  extent.  For  instance,  we  all  must  recognize, 
if  it  is  put  to  us,  that  justice  did  not  come  into  existence 
with  any  particular  law,  and  does  not  perish  when  any 
particular  law  becomes  obsolete  ;  and  that  there  must  be 
some  more  permanent  principle  of  justice  underlying 
the  actual  laws  and  customs  of  society.  And  the  same 
thing  is  still  more  obvious  in  physical  science  ;  the  first 
thing  we  have  to  learn  when  we  try  to  understand 
physical  phenomena  is  that  such  things  as  weight  are 
relative.  What  Plato  here  calls  philosophy  is  the  clear 
and  complete  recognition  of  what  we  all  to  some  extent 
admit.  To  state  his  conception  of  the  philosophic  mind 
briefly,  it  is  one  which  constantly  looks  for  principles  or 
laws  or  unities  of  which  the  manifold  of  our  experience 
is  the  phenomenon  *. 

Plato's  conception  of  forms  corresponds  to  what  we 
have  in  mind  when  we  speak  of  '  principles '  in  morality 
and  of  '  laws '  in  science.  What  he  says  applies  alike  to 
moral,  aesthetic,  and  physical  conceptions ;  the  form  in 
every  case  is  that  which  is  constant  under  variation,  and 
it  is  what  the  man  of  science  is  always  trying  to  get  at. 
To  the  ordinary  mind  it  seems  at  first  unreal,  less  real 
than  the  ordinary  view  of  things  as  they  appear,  the 
sensible  world  ;  but  the  world  as  it  is  for  science,  the 
world  of  what  Plato  calls  forms,  is  not  a  second,  shadowy, 
unreal  world,  it  is  the  same  world  better  understood. 

Plato   speaks   in   this    passage   of   the   '  communion ' 

1  We  may  compare  Shelley's  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty,  and  stanzas 
52  and  54  in  his  Adonais,  and  Rossetti's  sonnet,  Soul's  Beauty,  with  the 
language  in  which  Plato  contrasts  sensible  phenomena  with  the  unseen 
principles  which  underlie  them. 

O  2 


196         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

(koivoovlo)  of  forms  '  with  acts  and  bodies,'  their  being 
communicated  to  acts  and  bodies  (476  a).  The  meaning 
of  the  expression  may  be  put  as  follows:  — If  you  take 
any  given  act  called  a  just  act,  you  will  see  it  is  not  the 
whole  of  justice  ;  it  only  partakes  in  justice  along  with 
other  acts.  Justice  may  be  regarded  as  something  com- 
municable (kowov)  in  which  various  acts  and  persons 
partake  without  diminishing  or  modifying  justice,  as  the 
common  interest  of  a  community  is  shared  in  by  all  its 
members  without  being  diminished,  and  remains  some- 
thing one  and  the  same  in  them  all.  The  sense  in  which 
forms  are  said,  in  the  same  place,  to  communicate  with 
one  another,  is  different.  If  you  take  a  given  act,  person, 
or  thing,  you  find  it  is  the  meeting-point  of  various 
principles  or  forms.  A  particular  act  is  never  merely 
just ;  it  always  has  other  qualities  besides,  and  it  may 
even  be  partly  unjust.  So  the  forms  of  justice  and 
injustice  and  other  forms  meet  and  communicate  with 
one  another  in  this  act.  In  the  Sophist  Plato  tells  us 
that  one  of  the  great  ways  in  which  scientific  knowledge 
shows  itself  is  in  recognizing  what  forms  thus  communicate 
with  one  another,  and  what  forms  have  no  communication 
with  one  another  \ 

Plato  contrasts  clear  and  complete  perception  of  a  truth 
(perception  of  the  form)  with  confused  perception  of  it, 
by  contrasting  waking  with  dreaming  vision  (476  c).  The 
ordinary  man  is  in  a  dream  with  regard  (amongst  many 
other  things)  to  justice  ;  like  a  man  in  a  dream  he  takes 
the  resemblance  for  that  which  it  resembles,  or  in  other 
words  takes  one  thing  for  another  with  which  it  is  so  far, 
but  only  so  far,  the  same.     For,  Plato  says,  he  identifies 

1  See  Sophist,  251  D,  and  252  E  to  253  c.     Cf.  also  Politicus,  277  E  to 
378  E. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  197 

particular  just  laws  and  actions  with  the  principle  of 
justice.  What  does  Plato  mean  by  this?  Our  first  im- 
pulse, if  asked  what  justice  is,  would  be  to  instance  some 
familiar  actions,  precepts,  or  institutions.  We  may  be 
right  in  thinking  that  the  main  part  of  justice  for  us 
consists  in  them  ;  but  if  (to  take  this  instance)  a  man 
identifies  justice  with  certain  laws,  he  may  be  reduced 
to  a  hopeless  difficulty  if  it  can  be  pointed  out  that  the 
laws  become  unjust  or  obsolete.  This  has  always  made 
mankind  look  for  principles  that  remain  constant  as  the 
world  changes.  Laws,  people  say,  may  change,  but 
justice  remains  justice.  Again,  if  a  man  acts  on  the 
principle  which  Plato  describes,  that  certain  actions  he 
is  familiar  with  are  justice,  when  he  comes  to  a  just 
action  which  looks  rather  different  he  thinks  it  is  not 
just,  because  he  has  identified  justice  with  another  thing. 
In  this  he  is  like  a  man  to  whom  shadows  and  superficial 
resemblances  are  the  whole  reality.  This  is  the  meaning 
of  Plato's  insistence  that  the  just  act  is  not  justice,  but  is, 
as  he  puts  it,  like  justice. 

2.  The  next  section  of  the  argument  is  complementary  Book  vi  to 
to  that  which  has  gone  before  it ;  it  develops  the  con-  4  7  A 
ception  of  the  philosophic  nature  from  its  more  ethical 
side.  From  the  general  description  he  has  given  of  that 
nature  Plato  now  proceeds  to  deduce  the  ethical  charac- 
teristics which  it  seems  to  him  to  imply.  If  the  philosophic 
nature  were  what  this  deduction  shows  it  ought  to  be,  there 
could,  he  claims,  be  no  doubt  that  it  should  be  placed  at 
the  head  of  society. 

We  have  reached  this  conclusion  :  first,  the  philosophic 
nature  has  an  indiscriminate  appetite  for  knowing  about 
things  ;  secondly,  its  search  for  knowledge  is  distinguished 
from  other  kindred  forms  of  activity  by  the  fact  that  it  is 


198         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

always  trying  to  get  at  the  underlying  principles  or 
'  forms '  of  which  the  manifold  and  changing  world  of 
experience,  as  it  presents  itself  to  us,  is  the  partial 
appearance.  We  have  next  to  ask.  What  is  the  bearing 
of  this  conclusion  on  the  fitness  of  the  philosophic  nature 
to  govern  ?  and  this  again  brings  us  back  to  the  question, 
What  is  involved  in  being  a  good  ruler  or  guardian 
(484  c)? 

In  order  to  keep  or  guard  a  thing  you  must  have 
a  clear  vision  of  it.  If  then  a  man  is  to  keep  or  guard 
laws  and  institutions  and  to  improve  them  when  they 
want  reforming,  he  clearly  must  not  be  blind  ;  he  must 
have  in  his  mind  some  clear  pattern  or  principle  by 
which  he  can  know  whether  what  he  is  maintaining  is 
really  just  and  expedient,  and  to  which  he  can  appeal 
when  he  wants  to  change  existing  institutions.  To 
expand  what  Plato  says,  a  statesman  cannot  know 
when  the  existing  order  is  failing  to  serve  its  purpose, 
and  in  what  way  to  reform  it,  unless  he  has  in  his 
mind  some  definite  principle  to  go  upon  as  to  the 
purpose  of  that  order.  The  perception  of  forms  or  prin- 
ciples is  therefore  of  vital  importance  for  the  governor  ; 
and  if  a  man  who  possesses  it  can  add  to  it  what  is 
called  experience  (lix-neipia)  he  will  have  the  essential 
requisites  for  good  government.  'EfiireipCa,  whether  used 
in  a  good  or  in  a  depreciatory  sense,  means  that  knowledge 
which  comes  from  habitually  having  to  do  with  a  thing. 
It  may  be  extremely  valuable  ;  it  may  be  almost  worth- 
less. Thus  ifx-neij>ia  sometimes  denotes  mere  superficial 
acquaintance  with  a  thing,  and  is  contrasted  with  know- 
ledge of  principles  as  we  contrast  rule  of  thumb  with 
science1.  Sometimes,  as  in  this  passage,  it  is  used  to 
'   In  this  sense  Plato  often  uses  Tpt0f/ ;  cf.  493  B. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  199 

denote  the  real  acquaintance  which  comes  from  practice. 
In  all  such  cases,  it  is  represented  as  the  necessary  filling 
up  of  knowledge  of  principle  ;  for  a  man  cannot  carry 
out  principles  unless  he  knows  how  to  recognize  them  in 
the  details  of  life  and  to  apply  them  to  details.  True 
knowledge  of  principles  involves  a  fortiori  the  knowledge 
of  details.  Plato  is  impressed  with  this  truth ;  and  in 
his  scheme  of  philosophic  education  in  Book  VII,  the 
fifteen  years  from  the  age  of  thirty-five  to  the  age  of 
fifty  are  set  apart  exclusively  to  the  special  purpose 
of  acquiring  the  experience  which  is  necessary  in  men 
who  are  to  become  leading  statesmen.  But  what  is  here 
insisted  on  is  the  supreme  importance  for  the  statesman 
of  having  a  principle  in  his  mind.  Without  that  ex- 
perience is  nothing l. 

It  only  remains  now  to  ask  (485  A  to  48 7  a)  whether 
the  philosophic  nature  carries  with  it  the  other  qualities, 
moral  and  intellectual,  which  go  to  make  up  a  good  and 
great  character.  This  is  somewhat  analogous  to  the 
question  in  Book  II,  whether  'spirit'  is  compatible  with 
gentleness.  In  that  case  Plato  decided  that  the  one 
quality,  if  real,  implied  the  other,  and  his  answer  is 
the  same  here.  He  proceeds  to  deduce  from  the  simple 
conception  of  love  of  truth  all  the  virtues  which  seem 
to  him  to  be  part  of  perfect  human  nature.  He  first 
describes  afresh  in  emphatic  language  the  essence  of  the 
philosophic  nature.  It  involves  the  passion  for  reality, 
the  impulse  to  get  at,  and  to  be  at  one  with,  the  per- 
manent laws  or  principles  of  things.  To  such  a  nature, 
he  remarks,  there  is  nothing  too  great  and  nothing  too 
little  for  study,  because  everything  is  capable  of  leading 
to  the  truth  (cf.  402  c).  From  such  a  disposition  there 
1  Cf.  409,  493  B,  520  c  and  539  B. 


2oo         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

follows  instinctive  hatred  of  falsehood.  Self-control 
follows  no  less,  because  the  love  of  truth  is  emphatically 
an  absorbing  passion ;  it  is  an  appetite  {kinQv^ia),  and 
when  a  man's  appetites  are  intensely  set  in  one  direction, 
other  desires  grow  weaker  like  a  stream  whose  waters 
are  diverted.  Again,  any  kind  of  meanness  or  spiteful  - 
ness  or  little-mindedness  is  inconsistent  with  such 
a  nature,  for  the  essence  of  it  is  to  be  always  reaching 
out  after  the  whole  world,  human  and  divine.  Courage 
must  follow  too,  for  the  fear  of  death  is  impossible  to 
a  mind  to  which  human  life  is  a  mere  fragment  in 
a  greater  whole,  and  which  has  its  vision  set  on  all  time 
and  on  all  existence.  And  justice  must  follow,  for  a 
mind  not  influenced  by  fear,  greed,  or  personal  passion 
has  nothing  to  make  it  unjust 1.  There  are  also  intel- 
lectual qualities  which  will  go  with  such  a  nature.  It 
must  be  quick  and  retentive,  for  a  man  cannot  love 
learning  if  the  practice  of  it  is  constant  pain  to  him. 
It  must  also  possess  eju/^erpux — a  sort  of  mental  symmetry 
or  proportion.  This  is  a  quality  which  makes  the  mind, 
so  to  say,  naturally  adaptable  to  the  nature  of  things2. 
(Plato  is  fond  of  representing  the  relation  between  subject 
and  object  in  knowledge  as  the  relation  between  two 
things  which  are  akin  to  one  another  and  like  one 
another.  It  is  habitual  with  him  to  say  that  a  soul  which 
easily  learns  is  one  which  has  a  great  and  natural  affinity 

1  Or  8u<r£t5/i/3oAo9,  i.  c.  difficult  to  deal  with  in  business. 

3  £11070)705,  i.  c.  easily  converted  into  any  required  shape,  is  used  in 
nnc  sentence  as  an  equivalent  to  ifi/jurpos.  The  epithet  «ux<Jp<s, 
literally  '  graceful,'  is  coupled  with  them.  This  also  is  a  word  expressing 
primarily  a  physical  characti  n  In  It  1  ,  equivali  at  l<>  tvnxvtia',\  'well- 
shaped.'  In  III.  400  11  sq.  /xovcticrj  is,  in  effect,  said  to  make  the  mind 
fvrr^Tjfxojv  and  tvap/joaro^  (apt  or  adaptable  .  In  that  passage  good  taste, 
good  manners,  good  feeling  are  what  the  words  refer  to. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  201 

to  things  about  it.  Learning  is  the  conforming  of  one's 
mind  so  as  to  fit  things ;  everybody  finds  in  learning 
that,  while  most  things  are  difficult,  there  are  some  which 
it  is  comparatively  easy  for  him  to  conform  his  mind  to  ; 
and  the  mind  which  is  well  proportioned  (e/xjixerpos)  is  the 
mind  which  is  most  ready  to  be  thus  conformed  to  most 
things.  Thus  in  the  Sophist1,  the  soul  is  said  to  be 
liable  to  two  forms  of  evil,  corresponding  to  bodily 
disease  and  to  bodily  deformity ;  the  former  is  vice,  the 
latter  is  ignorance  ;  it  is  described  as  a  condition  where 
the  soul  has  an  impulse  to  think,  but  '  thinks  beside  the 
mark  '  because  there  is  a  want  of  frv^/xerpta  between  the 
soul  and  truth  ;  ignorance  is  ajwerpta.  The  philosophic 
nature,  then,  will  have  a  natural  predisposition  to  get  hold 
of  things;  it  will  naturally  adapt  itself  to  the  form  and 
nature  of  things.)  And  now,  Plato  asks,  who  would 
hesitate  to  entrust  the  state  to  people  endowed  with 
the  philosophic  nature,  if  it  necessarily  implies  all  the 
qualities  we  have  enumerated  ? 

Plato  has  here  described  the  philosophic  nature,  as 
he  understands  it,  in  its  fullness.  It  is  simply  the  ideally 
good  nature  ;  human  nature  completely  gifted,  and  with 
free  play  given  to  all  its  gifts.  His  idea  of  it  is  at 
variance  with  our  use  of  the  word  '  philosophic,'  but  it  is 
quite  consistent  with  the  gradual  development  of  the 
philosophic  element  in  the  soul  as  it  has  been  described 
in  the  Republic  from  the  first.  The  leading  idea  in 
Plato's  conception  of  this  element  is  that  it  is  that  in  the 
soul  which  prompts  it  to  go  out  of  itself  and  unite  itself 
with  something  else  which  is  akin  to  it.  It  is  thus  the 
source  in  man  of  very  different  things.  It  is  the  source 
of  gentleness  and  sociability,  for  it  is  that  which  draws 

1  228. 


ro2         LECTURES    ON    PLATo's    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

men  together  with  a  sense  of  the  familiarity  of  man  to 
man.  It  is  the  source  of  the  love  of  beauty,  including 
the  literary  and  the  artistic  sense,  for  in  what  is  beautiful 
the  soul  finds  something  which  it  recognizes  as  its  own 
(oiKtlov)  and  in  the  presence  of  which  it  feels  at  home. 
Lastly,  it  is  the  source  of  love  of  truth,  and  this  means 
the  impulse  to  understand  and  be  at  one  with  the  world 
about  us.  Though  ordinary  English  psychology  would 
not  agree  with  Plato  in  deriving  these  three  different 
things  from  a  single  source,  there  are  many  familiar 
facts  which  illustrate,  and  to  a  certain  extent  bear  out, 
what  he  says.  For  example,  we  all  know  that  for  us 
to  understand  another  person,  or  to  understand  human 
nature,  sympathy  is  the  essential  thing.  An  '  unsym- 
pathetic '  man  is  a  stupid  man.  The  great  masters  in 
understanding  human  nature  have  been  those  who  have 
felt  at  home  with  all  mankind.  Similarly  in  studying 
things,  even  the  most  abstract,  we  cannot  understand 
them  unless  we  feel  a  certain  interest  in  them,  and  that 
is  the  same  sort  of  feeling  as  sympathy. 

The  philosophic  element  in  man,  then,  is  the  essentially 
human  clement ;  it  is  what  makes  a  man  a  man,  and  there- 
fore in  its  fullness  it  implies  a  perfect  humanity,  a  fully 
gifted  human  nature.  For  a  conception  parallel  to  this 
we  should  turn  in  modern  times  to  religious  thought. 
It  is  to  be  found  in  the  love  of  God  and  man  which  is 
represented  in  the  New  Testament  as  resulting  in  all 
virtues,  and  making  a  perfect  man.  There  is  an  analogy, 
for  instance,  between  Plato's  deduction  of  all  virtues 
from  philosophy,  and  St.  Paul's  deduction  of  all  virtues 
from  'charity'  in  i  Corinthians  xiii.  For  in  this 
conception  of  philosophy  there  are  combined  the 
scientific  spirit  and  the  religious  spirit  in  their  highest 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  203 

forms.  It  is  the  desire  to  be  at  one  with  the  laws  of 
nature,  and  to  live  according  to  nature ;  and  as  to  Plato 
the  world  is  emphatically  the  work  of  a  divine  intelli- 
gence, being  at  one  with  nature  is  also  in  a  sense  being 
at  one  with  God.  That  is  why  he  speaks  of  such 
understanding  in  terms  which  we  should  apply  to 
religious  emotion. 

3.  To  the  proof  that  the  philosophic  nature  is  fit  487  a  io 
to  rule  Adeimantus  (487  A)  makes  precisely  the  objection  497 
which  every  reader  of  the  Republic  is  inclined  to  make. 
This  sounds  very  logical,  he  says,  but  the  facts  are  all 
the  other  way ;  if  you  look  at  the  people  who  are  called 
philosophers,  who  pursue  the  study  of  philosophy  beyond 
the  mere  purposes  of  education,  the  best  are  made  use- 
less by  the  pursuit  of  philosophy,  and  the  majority  are 
either  eccentric  or  disreputable.  One  may  compare  this 
with  what  might  be  said  with  equal  truth  about  the 
religious  spirit  ;  some  people  are  disposed  to  say  that 
what  is  called  the  love  of  God  results  either  in  a  saintli- 
ness  which  does  no  good  to  mankind,  or  in  a  zeal  which 
is  alloyed  with  ambition,  cruelty,  and  fanaticism,  or, 
worst  of  all,  in  cant  and  hypocrisy. 

Socrates,  so  far  from  denying  the  facts  alleged  about 
philosophers,  heartily  admits  them.  It  is  the  very  truth 
of  these  facts  which  has  led  him  to  say  that  the  evils 
of  mankind  result  from  the  divorce  between  speculation 
and  action.  He  goes  on  to  attempt  to  explain  them, 
considering  in  order  the  uselessness  of  the  few  genuine 
philosophers,  the  corruption  of  most  of  those  who  are 
gifted  with  the  philosophic  nature,  and  the  usurpation 
of  the  name  of  philosopher  by  charlatans. 

First  (487  E  to  489  d)  Plato  puts  before  us,  in  the 
allegory  or  image  (eiKow)  of  the  ship,  a  picture  of  the 


204         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

situation  in  the  world  of  the  few  genuine  philosophers 
that  there  are.  In  that  allegory  the  owner  of  the  ship 
who  sails  in  it  is  the  Athenian  people,  which  owns  the 
state  and  is  supreme  therein.  Plato's  description  of  him 
is  noticeable :  though  he  is  the  biggest  and  strongest 
man  in  the  ship,  he  is  rather  deaf  and  short-sighted, 
and  he  is  ignorant  of  navigation,  but  he  is  a  noble  sort 
of  fellow,  good  at  bottom.  With  this  we  may  compare 
the  passage  further  on  (499  e),  where  he  says  of  the 
masses,  '  Don't  be  so  hard  on  them  ;  it  is  not  their  own 
fault  that  they  are  so  hostile  to  philosophy,  it  is  because 
they  have  never  been  shown  what  it  means.'  Aristocrat 
as  he  is  by  birth  and  intellect,  Plato  has  a  kind  of  half- 
pity,  half- sympathy  for  the  people.  The  men  he  really 
hates  are  demagogues  in  politics  or  philosophy.  The 
sailors  in  the  ship  are  the  statesmen  and  leaders  of 
public  opinion.  Their  principle  is  that  in  order  to  sail 
the  ship  it  is  not  necessary  ever  to  have  learnt  the  art  of 
navigation,  and  indeed  they  hold  that  the  art  really 
cannot  be  taught  at  all.  The  one  man  on  board  who 
could  sail  the  ship,  who  possesses  the  double  qualifica- 
tion of  theoretical  knowledge  and  skill  to  command, 
represents  the  true  philosopher.  He  is  regarded  by 
the  others  on  the  ship  as  a  mere  star-gazer.  This  is  the 
simple  explanation  of  the  uselessncss  of  the  philosopher; 
he  is  useless  because  the  world  will  not  use  him.  And 
it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things.  Plato  thinks,  that 
a  doctor  should  go  about  to  his  fellow-citizens  and  ask 
them  to  let  him  heal  them  ;  the  natural  relation  is  that 
those  who  want  should  go  to  those  who  can  give1. 

1  Tlic  uselessness  and  helplessness  of  the  philosopher  are  vividly  de- 
scribed in  Theatt.  i  7-'  <  to  i  76  a,  and  Gorgias,  484  C  to  486  D  ;  but  in  the 
former   passag<     Plato    il St   glories    in    them,  and   in  the   Gorgias  the 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  205 

But,  secondly  (489  D  to  495  b),  this  uselessness  of  the 
genuine  philosopher  is  the  least  of  the  causes  which  ruin 
the  state.  A  far  more  serious  cause  is  the  demoralization 
of  most  of  those  who  have  the  gift  for  philosophy.  Before 
describing  this,  Plato  returns  to  his  account  of  the  philo- 
sophic nature.  He  repeats  in  stronger  terms  what  he 
has  already  said  of  it,  that  its  essence  is  the  irrepressible 
impulse  to  get  behind  the  manifold  and  penetrate  to  the 
reality;  that  there  is  a  certain  kinship  (£vyyeveia)  between 
the  soul  and  reality,  and  that  the  philosophic  nature 
is  not  satisfied  until  the  soul  has  become  actually  one 
with  reality 1.  How  is  it,  then,  that  most  of  those  who 
have  this  nature  become  demoralized  ?  Its  very  gifts 2 
help  to  destroy  it  by  drawing  it  away  from  philosophy, 
its  true  life;  and  the  external  good  things  of  life,  beauty, 
strength,  wealth,  and  powerful  connexions,  also  help 
to  destroy  it.  If  we  look  at  this  phenomenon  as  part 
of  a  more  general  phenomenon,  and  regard  the  human 
soul  as  one  among  other  living  organisms,  coming  under 
the  same  category  as  plants  and  animals,  we  can  under- 
stand how  it  comes  about.  All  these  things  require 
a  certain  environment  to  live  in,  and  they  grow  according 
to  it.  The  strongest  of  them,  Plato  says,  suffer  more 
serious   consequences   from   bad    nourishment    than    the 

philosopher  is  declared  to  be,  in  spite  of  them,  the  only  true  statesman. 
Plato's  tone  in  the  present  passage  is  different ;  he  feels  that  the  only 
hope  for  mankind  lies  in  the  reconciliation  of  philosophy  and  the  world. 

1  He  describes  knowledge  under  the  image  of  sexual  love.  Truth  and 
intelligence  are,  so  to  say,  the  offspring  of  the  union  between  the  soul 
and  reality,  and  the  attainment  of  truth  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  pangs  of 
the  soul.  So  in  the  Symposium,  the  attainment  of  knowledge  of  the  good 
is  represented  under  the  figure  of  love  clasping  the  beautiful  ;  and  the 
progress  by  which  the  mind  comes  to  desire  this  knowledge  is  repre- 
sented as  a  gradual  progress  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  idea  of  beauty. 

a  The  ipvaiKal  dpfral  of  Aristotle  ;  Eth.  VI.  xiii.  1. 


so6         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

weaker ;  and  so  the  most  gifted  souls  are  the  most 
injured  by  noxious  surroundings  ;  and  the  great  criminals 
of  the  world  have  never  been  small  or  weak  natures,  but 
always  great  natures  corrupted.  This  being  so,  let  us 
ask  what  is  the  environment  into  which  our  supposed 
philosophic  soul  is  born.  It  is  born  into  an  atmosphere 
of  public  opinion  which  meets  it  in  the  assembly,  the 
law-courts,  the  theatre,  the  army — everywhere  where 
men  are  gathered  together.  This  public  opinion  is 
invincible  and  irresponsible ;  no  individual  soul  can 
assert  its  own  independence  of  it  except  by  some  super- 
human gift  of  nature;  it  is  the  source  of  law;  practically 
it  is  the  great  educator,  and  there  is  no  other  education 
worth  talking  about.  Public  opinion  is  the  one  great 
sophist,  and  those  poor  amateurs  whom  public  opinion 
represents  as  corrupting  the  youth,  merely  repeat  and 
formulate  the  dictates  of  the  very  society  that  thus  stig- 
matizes them.  Here  Plato's  tone  towards  the  sophists  is 
one  of  contemptuous  pity  ;  they  are  simply  bear-leaders  of 
the  people.  The  people,  symbolized  before  by  the  owner 
of  the  ship,  is  here  described,  with  less  good  nature,  but 
with  no  actual  dislike,  as  a  great  and  strong  beast  who 
lets  himself  be  handled  by  his  keepers  provided  they 
study  his  whims  and  do  all  they  can  to  humour  him  1. 

The  so-called  leaders  of  opinion,  then,  only  formulate 
opinion.  They  have  no  knowledge  of  the  things  they 
speak  of;  and  though  they  talk  of  good  and  bad,  just 
and  unjust,  these  are  no  more  to  them  than  names  for 
the    likes    and    dislikes   of  the    multitude2.      And   the 

1  Cf.  Demosthenes,  Olynth.  III.  31. 

1  They  can  only  say,  Plato  adds,  that  the  just  and  good  arc  the 
necessary.  Sec  Timaeus,  47  e  sq.,  for  the  antithesis  of  the  necessary  and 
the  rational. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  207 

multitude  can  never  be  philosophers,  but  will  tend  to  be 
distrustful  of  philosophic  principles,  and  hostile  to  them. 
Born  into  this  atmosphere,  what  is  likely  to  become  of 
the  philosophic  nature  with  all  its  gifts  ? 

The  passage  in  which  Plato  answers  this  question  (494) 
is  supposed  to  refer  to  Alcibiades  l.  He  certainly  seems 
to  be  speaking  of  some  actual  man  ;  and  we  know  that 
it  was  made  a  reproach  to  Socrates  that  Alcibiades  and 
others  among  his  most  distinguished  friends  turned  out 
badly.  Suppose,  says  Socrates,  after  describing  a  man 
born  into  Athenian  society  with  every  gift  of  nature 
and  of  fortune,  that  some  one  goes  to  the  man  so  gifted 
or  surrounded,  and  tells  him  the  truth,  '  that  he  has  not 
got  wisdom,  that  he  needs  it,  and  that  to  win  wisdom 
a  man  must  be  a  slave  under  the  burden  of  that  task ' : 
what  will  happen?  If  at  first  he  shows  a  disposition  to 
listen,  the  leaders  of  society  will  at  once  be  up  in  arms, 
and  set  in  motion  every  means  to  destroy  the  influence 
of  the  one  man  who  could  save  him  ;  they  want  to  use 
him  for  their  own  ends 2.  This  is  the  way  in  which  men 
of  a  nature  which  ought  to  make  them  the  benefactors 
of  mankind  generally  become  its  destroyers.  Society, 
partly  unconsciously  and  partly  deliberately,  corrupts 
those  who  might  be  its  noblest  members. 

Thus,  to  come  to  the  third  point  (495  B  to  496  a), 
Philosophy  is  deserted  by  those  who  ought  to  be  her 
followers.  Yet  she  still  retains  the  splendour  of  a  great 
name,  and  the  reputation  of  a  philosopher  remains  an 
object  of  ambition  and  competition.     From  this  state- 

1  Cf.  with  this  passage  Alcibiades  Prim.  105  B,  132  A,  135  E. 

2  There  is  a  certain  likeness  in  this  passage  to  the  saying  of  the  New 
Testament  :  '  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.' 


208         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

ment  one  may  gather,  as  one  may  also  gather  from 
Isocrates1,  that  philosophy  was  a  name  over  which 
people  fought,  men  of  different  kinds  claiming  for  them- 
selves the  title  of  philosopher,  as  a  title  conveying 
distinction.  (There  is  no  English  parallel  to  this 
name ;  but,  though  the  word  '  culture '  has  not  the  same 
grand  associations,  it  has  been  the  subject  of  similar 
contention.)  Plato  was  one  of  those  who  aspired  to  bear 
this  title,  and  to  exhibit  a  true  conception  of  what 
philosophy  should  be,  and  in  developing  that  conception 
he  necessarily  fell  foul  of  others.  Doubtless  in  contem- 
porary literature  he  was  called  a  sophist,  and  denied  the 
name  of  a  philosopher ;  but  on  the  whole  it  was  Plato 
who  did  most  to  fix  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  its 
highest  sense.  He  now  proceeds,  in  a  most  picturesque 
and  powerful  passage,  to  describe  the  usurpation  of  the 
name  of  philosophy  by  unworthy  aspirants.  It  is  the 
most  personal  passage  in  the  Republic.  We  cannot 
be  certain  what  kind  of  people — no  doubt  a  particular 
set  of  people,  known  to  his  readers  —he  was  thinking  of. 
But  one  can  guess  that  they  were  probably  inferior 
lawyers  and  rhetoricians,  who  were  indelibly  dyed  with 
what  we  might  call  the  professional  taint.  He  describes 
them  as  having  their  souls  cramped  by  their  trade.  (The 
quality  of  fiavavaU  (the  taint  of  the  shop)  which  he 
attributes  to  them,  seems  originally  to  have  described 
a  sort  of  physical  distortion  which  arose  from  intense 
application  to  mechanical  arts,  and  to  which  was  largely 
due  the  contempt  of  the  Greeks  for  such  arts.  Here  this 
analogy  is  applied  to  men's  souls,  as  also  in  the  Thcactctus2, 

1  For  the  meaning  which    Isocrates  attached  to  the  words  philosopher 
and  sophist  sec  Kara  tujv  Ioijuotuiv,  and  Titpl  'AvriSuafcos. 

2  173  A. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  209 

where  we  are  told  how  the  slavery  of  the  law  courts 
gradually  makes  men  small  and  crooked  in  soul.)  Little 
creatures  of  this  sort,  who  are  smart  at  their  own  trades, 
take  a  leap  into  philosophy.  To  change  the  metaphor, 
they  marry  Philosophy  because  there  is  no  one  else  to  do 
so,  so  poor  is  she ;  and  the  fruit  of  their  union  is  seen  in 
those  misbegotten  theories  and  ideas  which  circulate 
in  the  world  under  the  name  of  philosophic  principles. 
This  it  is  which  brings  upon  philosophy  the  reproach 
that  it  is  not  only  a  useless  thing,  but  is  charlatanry. 

It  remains  (496  A  to  497  A)  to  mention  a  few  causes 
which  still  keep  a  small  remnant  of  true  philosophic 
natures  in  the  service  of  philosophy.  Sometimes  a  man 
of  noble  nature,  well  educated,  is  banished,  and  thus 
escapes  demoralization.  Sometimes  a  great  mind  is 
born  in  some  petty  state,  and  despises  its  political  life. 
Some  few  come  to  philosophy  from  contempt  of  the 
art  or  profession  in  which  they  are  engaged  ;  a  few  are 
kept  from  politics  by  ill-health ;  and  a  few,  perhaps,  by 
a  sort  of  divine  intimation  like  the  divine  sign  which 
keeps  Socrates  himself  from  politics.  All  these  are 
abnormal  circumstances,  which  (except  the  last-named) 
would  not  arise  if  the  world  were  as  it  ought  to  be  ; 
and  these  few  true  philosophers  who  do  survive,  have 
nothing  better  to  do  than  to  keep  themselves  as  pure 
from  taint  as  they  can,  and  to  wait.  A  man  who  has 
lived  a  life  like  this  will  have  done  something  great 
before  he  dies,  says  Adeimantus.  Yes,  answers  Socrates, 
but  not  the  greatest  thing  unless  he  finds  a  city  fit  for 
him ;  for  in  that  case,  he  will  save  both  himself  and  the 
commonwealth. 

4.   In  the  section  which  now  follows,  we  are  shown  497  a  to 
in  a  general  way  how  the  divorce  between  the  world 

VOL.  11.  P 


210  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

and  philosophy,  so  mischievous  to  both  of  them,  may 
be  brought  to  an  end.  The  foregoing  sections  have 
shown  us  what  philosophy  really  is,  namely  the  perfection 
of  human  life,  and  what  the  actual  facts  of  human  society 
are  ;  this  section  brings  us  to  the  reconciliation  between 
the  elements  which  have  been  so  violently  contrasted 
just  before.  Various  incidental  passages  in  it  express 
the  same  spirit  of  reconciliation.  Socrates  and  Thrasy- 
machus  are  declared  to  have  been  made  friends ;  and 
Socrates  himself,  as  he  rises  to  the  height  of  the  argu- 
ment, is  made  to  picture  the  work  of  reconciling  men 
to  the  truth  in  this  life  as  only  a  fragment  of  a  process 
which  extends  through  eternity.  The  world  at  large  is 
declared  not  to  be  so  bad  as  we  think ;  the  hostility 
men  feel  to  philosophy  arises  from  ignorance  of  it,  and 
if  they  could  only  be  shown  what  it  means,  they  would 
be  reconciled  to  it.  The  reason  why  the  mass  of  man- 
kind will  not  believe  us  is  because  what  is  generally 
called  philosophy  is  an  artificial  jargon  of  words  and 
ideas  fitted  together  like  a  puzzle,  so  as  to  look  consistent, 
whereas  true  philosophy  is  a  natural  harmony  of  word 
and  deed,  theory  and  practice.  And,  again,  the  so-called 
philosophers  are  men  who  are  generally  occupied  in 
personalities  ;  whereas  the  true  philosopher  must  from 
his  own  nature  be  at  peace  with  men,  for  he  dwells 
in  a  kingdom  of  peace,  constantly  in  the  presence  of 
a  world  where  injustice  is  neither  done  nor  suffered, 
a  world  of  unchangeable  law,  which  is  embodied  reason  1. 
If  then  there  could  be  found  a  man  who  could  transfer 
the  perfect  law,  of  which  he  has  the  vision,   into    the 

1  This  passage  states  most  strongly  the  belief  that  the  mind  assimilates 
the  law  and  reason  which  it  sees  in  the  world.  Cf.  Tint.  90 1);  Tlicact. 
176U-E. 


PHILOSOPHY    AND    THE    STATE  211 

characters  and  institutions  of  men,  like  a  great  artist 
taking  human  nature  as  he  finds  it  and  moulding  it  in 
the  light  of  his  own  high  conception,  we  should  indeed 
have  a  reconciliation  between  the  ideal  and  the  reality. 
However  difficult  this  may  be  it  is  not  impossible,  for 
it  is  not  impossible  that  a  genuine  philosopher  may 
be  found,  possessed  of  great  power,  who  will  escape 
deterioration,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  mankind  may 
listen  to  him. 

5.  The  question  which  remains  after  this  general 
indication  of  the  possibility  of  reconcilement  between 
philosophy  and  society,  concerns  the  course  of  study 
and  the  method  of  life  by  which  the  men  who  have  the 
philosophic  nature  can  be  trained,  so  as  to  be  not  the 
destroyers  but  the  saviours  of  society.  '  How,'  as  Socrates 
puts  it,  '  can  the  state  handle  philosophy  so  as  not  to  be 
ruined  ?  '  The  form  of  his  question  gives  a  strong,  strange 
impression  of  the  double-edged  and  dangerous  character 
of  the  force  in  human  nature  with  which  he  is  dealing1. 

1  479  d.    Cf.  VII.  537  d  to  539  c. 


P  2 


X.    THE   GOOD   AS  THE   SUPREME 
OBJECT   OF    KNOWLEDGE 

[Republic,  VI.  502  C  to  509  C.] 

The  failure  of  society  to  provide  the  right^myironment 
for  the  philosoph[c_nature  having  been  made  apparent, 
we  are  brought  again  to  the  question  of  education, 
which  forms  the  subject  of  discussion  from  this  point 
to  the  end  of  Book  VII.  A  system  of  education  is 
to  be  sketched  out  which  will  supplement,  where  this 
is  necessary,  the  partial  education  already  given  through 
fxovcriKri  and  yv\xvaaTiKi).  What  is  the  particular  defect 
of  this  education  which  requires  to  be  supplemented  ? 
It  is  that  it  provided  no  adequate  nourishment  for  the 
philosophic  nature  in  its  more  advanced  stage.  There 
is  an  essential  continuity  between  Books  II  to  IV,  and 
Books  V  to  VII,  in  their  treatment  of  the  philosophic 
nature  ;  still,  so  great  an  advance  has  been  made  in  the 
latter  Books  in  the  conception  of  that  nature  and  in  the 
corresponding  conception  of  the  education  it  requires, 
that  it  looks  as  if  Plato  were  beginning  all  over  again, 
and  had  forgotten  or  ignored  what  seemed  in  the  earlier 
Books  to  absorb  his  whole  attention. 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      213 

All  the  very  different  things  that  are  said  of  the 
philosophic  nature  from  Book  II  to  Book  IX  are  bound 
together  by  a  common  idea.  This  is  the  conception  of 
the  philosophic  element  in  the  soul,  as  that  which  makes 
the  soul  go  out  of  itself  under  the  attraction  of  something 
which  is  familiar  to  it  and  akin  to  it,  and  in  union  with 
which  it  finds  satisfaction.  In  all  its  various  senses  the 
philosophic  element  in  man  is  the  attraction  to  what  is 
like  oneself  and  yet  outside  oneself,  whether  it  be  attrac- 
tion to  other  people,  or  attraction  to  beautiful  things  in 
art  or  nature,  or  attraction  to  truth.  In  these  different 
things  Plato  seems  to  see  the  more  and  the  less  developed 
stages  of  a  single  impulse  in  the  soul,  the  highest  stage 
being  that  in  which  the  soul  goes  out  not  only  to  human 
beings,  nor  only  to  what  is  attractive  through  being 
beautiful,  but  to  the  truth  of  the  world  about  it,  in 
understanding  which  the  soul  finds  a  satisfaction  of  the 
same  nature  as  that  which  it  finds  in  union  with  its 
fellow-men.  The  problem,  then,  is  to  find  a  system  of 
education  which  shall  provide  nurture  for  the  soul  in  this 
stage,  that  is  to  say,  for  those  very  few  souls  in  whom 
the  philosophic  impulse  is  so  far  developed  as  to  require 
further  nurture.  The  great  bulk  of  men  would  find 
satisfaction  for  this  element  of  the  soul  in  the  active 
life  of  good  citizenship  in  which  they  are  engaged  in 
common  work  with  their  fellows,  but  there  would  be 
a  few  among  them  driven  by  an  inherent  impulse  of 
their  natures  to  look  for  laws,  or  principles  underlying 
the_  institutions  which  the  bulk  of  men  accept  with 
various  degrees  of_acquiescence.  In  the  case  of  such  it 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  both  to  themselves  and  to 
society  that  they  should  be  trained  rightly,  for  otherwise 
they  will  follow  their  impulse  wrongly.     By  what  actual 


2i4         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

method  of  study  and  life  will  these  few  become,  as  Plato 
says,  the  saviours  of  society  ? 
502  c  to  More   than   any  other   passage   of  the  Republic,  the 

504  E'  passage  in  which  this  question  is  introduced  explains 
the  relations  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  parts  of 
the  dialogue.  A  criticism  is  made  on  Books  II  to  IV, 
and  we  are  told  what  advance  on  them  is  required.  We 
are  told  that  the  community  of  wives  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  rulers  are  two  difficulties  which  Socrates  had 
been  conscious  of  all  along,  and  of  which  in  the  earlier 
Books  he  had  intentionally  put  off  the  treatment.  Com- 
munity of  wives  has  been  further  discussed  in  Book  V, 
and  here  we  are  brought  back  to  the  question  of  the 
appointment  of  rulers.  Socrates  refers  explicitly  to  the 
sentence  in  Book  III,  in  which  the  selection  and  appoint- 
ment of  rulers  is  said  to  have  been  dealt  with  in  outline  and 
not  with  dfcpl/3eia a  ;  and  the  nature  of  the  advance  now 
to  be  made  is  summed  up  in  the  word  aKpi/3eta.  This  is 
a  quality  originally  associated  with  artistic  work,  and 
aKpifiijs  means  primarily,  not  accurate  or  precise,  but 
exact,  in  the  etymological  sense  of  finished.  It  is  the 
opposite  of  what  is  merely  sketched,  and  we  constantly 
find  Aristotle  opposing  it  to  what  is  '  in  outline'  (tvtt<i>)~. 
All  through  this  passage  we  find  the  same  contrast 
between  what  is  to  follow  and  what  has  gone  before, 
insisted  on  from  different  points  of  view.  The  earlier 
treatment  was  incomplete  (drtAe'v),  it  was  a  sketch 
(uxroypar/;//),  it  was  something  without  its  full  '  measure  ' 
(not  accurately  measured).  Where  did  this  want  of 
completeness  in  the  earlier  parts  of  the  work  lie?  It 
appeared  in  two  principal  points :  in  the  account  of 
the  selection  and  appointment  of  Guardians,  and  in  the 

1  414  A.  '2  e.g.  in  Eth.  Nk.  II.  ii.  3. 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      215 

account  (which  really  underlay  this)  of  justice  and  the 
other  virtues1.  Plato  begins  with  the  appointment  of 
rulers. 

The  principle  upon  which  the  original  rulers  were 
selected  was  that  the  best  man  to  guard  anything  is 
the  man  who  loves  it  most.  Accordingly  the  supreme 
qualification  for  a  Guardian  of  the  state  was  that  he 
should  really  love  the  state.  The  test  to  be  applied  to 
his  qualifications  consisted  in  exposing  him  to  various 
emotional  trials,  pleasures,  pains,  and  fears,  which  would 
be  calculated  to  make  him  give  up  the  belief  (8o'yMa)  he 
had  learned,  '  that  he  should  do  in  everything  that  which 
seemed  best  for  the  state.'  If  he  showed  his  constancy 
by  withstanding  all  these  tests  he  would  be  a  full 
Guardian  (<j)v\a£  Travrekris)'.  But  this  selection  was  said 
at  the  time  to  be  only  provisional,  and  now  the  course 
of  the  argument  has  brought  us  back  to  the  question 
who  are  fitted  in  the  fullest  sense  of  all  to  be  Guardians 
(tovs  aKpLfieo-raTovs  <pvka.Ka$),  and  we  have  already  found 
that  they  will  have  to  be  philosophers.  This  involves 
a  fuller  training  and  a  severer  testing  of  the  character 
of  the  Guardians  than  we  at  first  thought  necessary. 
It  means  that  the  philosophic  element  in  human  nature, 
which  we  saw  from  the  first  must  be  strong  in  those 
who  are  to  rule,  contains  in  it  capacities  for  development 
greater  than  we  had  then  any  idea  of.  Out  of  this 
element  arises  the  irrepressible  speculative  impulse  in 
human  nature  with  all  its  capacities,  and  this  impulse  is 
a  double-edged  thing.     We  see  now  that  it  is  not  enough 

1  What  is  described  as  want  of  axpifliia  refers  indifferently  to  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  Guardians  selected,  and  to  our  own  state  of  mind  or  that 
of  the  supposed  electors  of  the  Guardians. 

2  See  412  B  to  414  B. 


216         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

merely  to  regard  constancy  of  character  (PefiaiSrqs)  in 
selecting  our  Guardians,  for  we  have  to  look  also  for 
a  quality  which  seems  just  the  opposite  of  that.  The 
speculative  temperament  does  not  naturally  fit  with  the 
orderly  and  solid  and  constant  temperament ;  it  is  quick, 
impatient,  aspiring,  and  this  side  of  it  cannot  be  ignored. 
And  yet  we  cannot  dispense  with  that  constancy  which 
we  before  made  the  essence  of  a  Guardian's  character. 
So  we  have  again  come  upon  the  problem  of  how  to 
effect  a  reconciliation  between  contradictory  qualities, 
,  for  we  have  to  combine  in  our  Guardians  the  intellectual 
restlessness  and  aspiration  of  the  philosophic  character, 
with  that  orderliness  and  constancy  which  is  equally  of 
the  essence  of  a  good  nature.  We  want,  then,  to  fill  up 
the  sketch  of  the  choice  and  education  of  Guardians  by 
showing  how  to  test  and  train  this  new  and  dangerous 
element.  Therefore  to  the  tests  of  pleasure  and  pain 
we  shall  have  to  add  the  tests  of  intellectual  work,  and 
see  whether  the  Guardian  has  also  the  sort  of  courage 
that  will  stand  them.  We  have  besides  to  supplement 
our  former  system  of  education  by  taking  account  of  the 
philosophic  faculty,  not  in  the  sense  of  the  love  of  beauty 
and  the  like,  which  ixovaiKi)  took  account  of,  but  in  its 
present  sense  of  hunger  for  knowledge. 

Again  (504  a),  there  was  a  want  in  the  account  given 
of  human  morality  in  the  earlier  Books.  The  general 
principle  by  which  we  determined  its  nature  was  one  of 
empirical  psychology.  We  took  from  observation  three 
main  elements  in  the  soul,  and  explained  the  four  main 
virtues  that  arc  generally  recognized  by  showing  that 
they  expressed  certain  states  of  these  three  elements  and 
certain  relations  between  them.  But,  as  was  stated  at 
the    time    (43J    D),  the  description  then  given  of  these 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      217 

virtues  was  inadequate.  We  now  want  to  see  the 
moral  nature  of  men  wrought  out  into  a  perfect  and 
finished  picture.  (It  is  to  be  noticed  in  this  passage 
(504  d)  how  naturally  and  almost  without  warning  the 
supposed  Guardians,  whose  education  is  under  discussion, 
are  identified  with  ourselves,  the  parties  to  the  discussion. 
This  is  a  good  instance  of  the  fact  that  the  education  of 
the  Guardians  is  primarily  meant  for  ourselves.) 

The  result  of  this  whole  passage  is  that,  whether  we 
regard  the  Republic  as  a  treatise  on  political  and  social 
reform,  or  simply  as  the  exhibition  of  an  ideal  theory  of 
human  life  which  every  one  may  apply  for  himself,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  previous  conception  of  what  man  is 
and  needs  should  be  carried  further  and  filled  up.  And 
if  we  ask  why,  the  answer  is  that  there  is  something  in 
human  nature,  at  any  rate  in  the  nature  of  those  who 
influence  the  world,  which  will  not  be  satisfied  with  the 
development  of  character  which,  in  the  earlier  Books, 
seemed  to  fulfil  the  requirements  of  morality. 

The  next  question  therefore  is,  What  addition  in  504  e. 
knowledge  will  supply  the  want  we  have  discovered  in 
the  training  which  the  earlier  Books  prescribed  ?  What 
sort  of  knowledge  is  required  to  convert  the  previous 
conception  of  the  virtues  into  a  finished  conception,  and 
the  Guardian  as  previously  described  into  a  Guardian  in 
the  fullest  sense  ?  The  answer  is  :  '  knowledge  of  the 
good.'  The  Guardians  will  be  poor  guardians  of  justice 
unless  they  understand  wherein  is  the  good  of  justice ; 
until  a  man  learns  what  it  is  that  makes  the  different 
sorts  of  goodness  intrinsically  good,  his  possession  of 
them  is  only  the  hold  of  opinion  and  not  of  knowledge. 
The  knowledge  of  the  good  will  fill  up  to  their  full 
measure  all  the  inchoate   ideas  of  morality  which   we 


218         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

have  thus  far  come  across.  This  is  the  highest  object 
of  knowledge  (\x£yi<TTov  \xa6r\ix,a),  and  in  it  all  the  utmost 
aspirations  of  the  speculative  spirit  will  find  satisfaction. 
The  more  developed  form  of  education  which  is  now 
to  be  described  must  therefore  be  an  education  which 
gradually  leads  up  to  the  conception  of  the  good. 

It  is  essential  to  the  understanding  not  only  of  Plato 
but  of  Greek  philosophy  generally,  both  moral  philo- 
sophy and  the  philosophy  of  knowledge,  to  realize  the 
place  held  in  them  by  the  conception  of  the  '  good.' 
We  see  at  once  from  what  Plato  now  proceeds  to  say 
of  the  good,  that  three  ideas,  which  to  us  seem  to  have 
little  concern  with  one  another,  are  for  him  inseparable. 
The  good  is  at  once :  first,  the  end  of  life,  that  is.  the 
supreme  object  of  all  desire  and  aspiration  ;  secondly, 
the  condition  of  knowledge,  or  that  which  makes  the 
world  intelligible  and  the  human  mind  intelligent ; 
thirdly,  the  creative  and  sustaining  cause  of  the  world. 
How  did  Plato  come  to  combine  under  one  conception 
ideas  apparently  so  remote  from  one  another  ? 

We  must  banish  from  our  minds  at  starting  the 
ordinary  moral  associations  of  our  word  '  good,'  those, 
for  instance,  which  attach  to  the  phrase  'a  good  man1.' 
To  ayaOov  does  not  in  the  first  instance  involve  any 
moral  qualities  ;  both  to  ordinary  people  and  to  philo- 
sophers among  the  Greeks  the  good  meant  the  object  of 
desire,  that  which  is  most  worth  having,  that  which  we 

1  [The  phrase  dyaOos  dv-qp  as  actually  used  in  Greek  seldom  or  never 
means  what  we  mean  when  we  call  a  man  simply  a  good  man.  It  means 
a  man  good  at  some  work  or  function  implied  by  the  context,  and  in  fact 
is  most  commonly  used  of  a  man  good  at  fighting.  The  modern  colloquial 
usage  by  which  in  discussing,  say,  football  players,  we  might  say  '  So- 
and-so  is  a  good  man'  is  identical  with  the  usage  of  the  term  in  Greek. 
—Ed.] 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      219 

most  want.  We  also  are  quite  familiar  in  books  with 
the  conception  of  the  desirable  as  the  object  of  human 
will,  but  we  do  not  at  once  realize  its  meaning.  The 
best  way  to  make  ourselves  realize  it  is  to  say  that 
the  good  or  desirable  at  any  given  moment  to  any 
given  man  is  that  which  he  would  rather  be  or  do 
or  have  than  anything  else.  If  at  any  given  moment 
a  man  will  give  up  his  life  in  order  to  get  money  or  to 
save  his  country  or  avenge  himself,  then  money,  or  the 
safety  of  his  country,  or  vengeance,  is  to  him  at  that 
moment  the  one  good  ;  for  it  he  is  ready  to  give 
up  everything  which  he  can  give  up.  Therefore  what 
is  the  good  to  us  varies  every  day,  but  at  every 
moment  there  is  something  which  we  take  as  our 
good.  In  Greek  philosophy  and  popular  thought,  it 
was  a  sort  of  ultimate  truth  that  man  is  a  being  who 
lives  for  something,  that  is  to  say  that  he  has  a  good. 
This  is  the  most  fundamental  fact  about  man  ;  he  is 
always  living  for  something,  however  much  he  tries 
not  to  do  so. 

Further,  to  a  Greek,  certainly  to  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  man  is  a  rational 
creature.  When  we  speak  of  '  a  rational  person  '  we 
generally  mean  one  who  does  not  make  a  fool  of  himself; 
this  and  other  phrases,  such  as  '  a  rational  being,'  do  not 
with  us  refer  to  anything  so  far  back  as  do  the  Greek 
phrases  which  we  should  translate  by  them.  To  the 
Greeks  the  statement  that  man  is  a  rational  being  meant 
simply  that  man  cannot  help  aiming  at  something  ;  he  is 
a  creature  of  means  and  ends  ;  everything  that  he  does 
is  from  the  constitution  of  his  nature  regarded  by  him 
as  a  means  to  something.  This  is  a  fundamental  point 
of  Greek    moral    philosophy       Hence   the   inseparable 


220         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

connexion  in  Plato  and  Aristotle  between  reason  and 
the  good.  This  is  not  an  association  between  some 
particular  good  thing,  some  true  end  of  life,  and  some 
particular  kind  of  reason  which  is  specially  rational, 
as  our  use  of  the  word  '  rational '  and  of  the  word  '  good  ' 
might  suggest,  but  between  reason  as  such  and  an  end 
as  such.  The  rationality  of  man  means  that  he  is 
a  creature  who  has  ideals,  and  who  cannot  help  having 
them.  An  ideal  is  something  which  is  not  fully  present 
at  this  particular  moment  in  this  particular  thing,  but  is 
yet  partly  attained  in  it.  The  conception  of  an  ideal 
involves,  on  the  one  hand,  that  it  is  never  wholly  realized, 
on  the  other  that  it  is  continually  being  realized.  How- 
ever much  and  however  often  the  object  with  which 
man  acts  may  change,  he  never  lives  absolutely  in  the 
present ;  in  the  moment  he  is  always  thinking  of  some- 
thing beyond  the  moment  ;  and  it  is  in  virtue  of  reason 
that  he  does  so.  It  is  owing  to  this  that  man  is  what  we 
call  a  moral  being.  He  is  capable  of  morality  because 
he  has  reason,  and  reason  compels  him  to  live  for  an  end  ; 
and  the  problem  of  moral  philosophy  to  the  Greeks  is 
always,  starting  from  this  fundamental  conception,  to 
determine  the  true  end  for  which  man  should  live.  It 
follows  that  to  the  Greek  thinkers  the  moral  life 
is  practically  identical  with  the  rational  life  (in  the 
sense  of  the  life  in  which  reason  performs  its  functions 
most  truly).  The  moral  life  can  only  mean  that  in 
which  a  man  does  all  that  he  docs  with  a  view  to,  and 
in  the  light  of,  the  true  good.  The  man  to  whom  the 
true  good  is  most  constantly  present  in  all  that  he  does 
is  the  best  man.  Thus  the  best  life  is  the  most  rational 
life,  because  it  is  that  in  which  action  and  thought  arc 
most  concentrated  upon,  and  regarded  most  as  a  means 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      221 

to,  the  central  principle  or  end  of  life,  which  is  what  the 
Greeks  call  the  good. 

It  is  in  this  point  that  what  we  commonly  distinguish 
as  the  moral  and  the  scientific  views  of  life  converge  in 
Greek  philosophy.  We  say  that  Greek  moral  philosophy, 
as  compared  with  modern,  lays  great  stress  on  knowledge 
and  gives  excessive  importance  to  intellect.  That  im- 
pression arises  mainly  from  the  fact  that  we  are  struck 
by  the  constant  recurrence  of  intellectual  terminology, 
and  omit  to  notice  that  reason  or  intellect  is  always 
conceived  of  as  having  to  do  with  the  good.  Reason  is 
to  Greek  thinkers  the  very  condition  of  man's  having 
a  moral  being,  because,  as  has  just  been  said,  by  reason 
they  understand  that  in  man  which  enables  him  to  live 
for  something.  Their  words  for  reason  and  rational  cover 
to  a  great  extent  the  ground  which  is  covered  by  words 
like  '  spirit,'  '  spiritual,'  and  '  ideal  '  in  our  philosophy. 
They  would  have  said  that  man  is  a  rational  being, 
where  we  should  say  that  he  is  a  spiritual  being.  It  is 
true,  however,  that  Greek  moral  philosophy  is  intensely 
intellectual,  and  that  the  moral  and  the  scientific  do 
tend,  especially  in  Plato,  to  converge. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  study  of  human  life, 
we  have  already  seen  that  the  necessity  of  living  for 
something  is  due  to  the  presence  of  reason  in  man ;  and 
now,  turning  from  human  action  to  nature  as  the  object 
of  science,  we  find  the  Greeks  assigning  essentially  the 
same  function  to  reason  as  before.  For  the  presence  of 
reason  in  the  world,  which  is  what  makes  it  possible  to 
understand  things,  means  for  them  that  every  object  in 
nature  or  art  contains  and  expresses  some  good  or  end. 
The  philosophy  of  morals  and  the  philosophy  of  science 
in  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  dominated  by  what  is  called 


222         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

a  teleological  view.  In  their  writings  intelligence  and 
the  good  are  treated  as  almost  correlative  ideas ;  wher- 
ever there  is  intelligence  there  is  a  good  aimed  at.  And 
this  idea  is  not  merely  confined  to  human  life,  but  is 
applied  all  the  world  over. 

We  must,  however,  be  careful  not  to  misunderstand 
this  idea.  We  generally  mean  by  a  teleological  view 
of  the  world  one  which  explains  nature  by  showing  that 
nature  has  been  made  to  serve  the  purposes  of  men. 
When  popularized  in  this  crude  form,  teleology  leads  to 
the  notion  that  nothing  has  any  purpose,  meaning,  or 
interest,  unless  it  is  shown  to  be  serviceable  to  man  ; 
and  as  our  notion  of  what  is  serviceable  to  us  is  very 
narrow,  the  so-called  teleological  view  comes  to  be 
an  absurdly  narrow  and  false  one,  against  which  the 
scientific  spirit  is  always  protesting.  But  teleology  in 
any  really  philosophical  sense  means  something  very 
different.  Plato  and  Aristotle  did  not  at  all  regard 
man  as  being  the  highest  thing  in  the  universe,  and 
were  therefore  far  from  regarding  the  universe  as  made 
for  man.  For  them  the  evidence  which  everything  gave 
of  the  operation  of  reason  lay  simply  in  the  fact  that 
each  thing  had  a  certain  function,  was  calculated  to  do 
one  thing  and  not  another,  and  that  the  various  parts 
of  it  converged  to  that  end.  If  you  take  any  complex 
object  (and  all  objects  arc  complex),  that  is  any  object 
which  is  a  whole  of  parts,  the  only  way  to  explain  it  or 
understand  it  is  to  sec  how  the  various  parts  arc  related 
to  the  whole ;  that  is,  what  function  each  of  them 
performs  in  the  whole,  how  each  of  them  serves  the 
good  or  end  (t«Aov)  of  the  whole.  The  good  or  end  of 
the  thing  is  the  immanent  principle  which  we  have  to 
suppose  in  it  in  order  to  explain  it,  and  which  is  involved 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      223 

in  calling  it  a  whole  at  all.  The  progress  of  knowledge 
is  to  Plato  and  Aristotle  the  increased  realization  of  the 
fact  that  each  thing  has  thus  its  function,  and  the  world 
is,  in  Plato's  phraseology,  luminous  just  so  far  as  it 
reveals  this  fact. 

The  best  instance  by  which  to  approach  this  view 
is  the  simple  instance  of  any  work  of  art.  When  a  man, 
to  take  the  example  used  by  Plato  in  the  Gorgias  (503  e), 
is  making  a  ship,  he  does  not  go  to  work  at  random  ; 
you  observe  that  he  puts  the  pieces  together  in  a  certain 
order  with  a  certain  end  in  view.  The  best  ship-builder 
is  the  one  who  puts  the  parts  together  in  that  order  which 
best  enables  them  to  serve  the  purpose  intended.  To 
serve  this  purpose  is  the  ship's  good.  The  good  of  any- 
thing is  to  be  or  do  what  it  is  meant  to  be  or  do ;  and 
the  ship  realizes  its  good,  or  object,  or  end  in  sailing  well. 
Thus  it  is  literally  true  that  every  bit  of  the  ship-builder's 
work  is  determined  by  the  good,  that  is  by  what  the 
whole  thing  he  is  making  is  intended  to  be  or  to  do. 
Reason,  therefore,  as  embodied  in  human  art,  artistic 
reason,  shows  itself  in  making  a  certain  material  express 
a  certain  good  ;  and  the  most  artistic  work  will  be  found 
to  be  that  which  most,  in  every  part  of  it,  expresses  such 
an  end,  good,  or  principle1.  This  is  the  teleological 
view  ;  that  view  simply  consists  in  seeing  everywhere 
a  certain  function  to  be  exercised,  a  certain  work  to  be 
done,  or  a  certain  end  or  good  to  be  worked  out.  From 
this  point  of  view  the  more  we  can  detect  the  function 
or  good  of  anything,  the  better  we  understand  it.  To 
a  person  who  knows  nothing  about  the  function  of  a  ship, 
it  may  truly  be  said  to  be  an  unintelligible  thing.     And 

1  It  is  the  same  fact  that  is  pointed  to  when  we  say  that  the  condition 
of  good  artistic  work  is  proportion. 


224         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

that  of  course  is  our  attitude  towards  the  great  majority 
of  things  in  the  world  ;  we  wonder  what  they  can  be  for, 
we  do  not  see  the  good  of  them. 

This  conception,  then,  is  applied  to  all  spheres  of 
existence,  to  nature,  art,  and  moral  life,  because  in  all 
of  these  there  is  present  intelligence.  It  is  clear  how 
the  view  applies  in  the  case  of  art  and  morality,  but  it 
applies  also  under  certain  limitations  in  the  case  of  nature. 
For  in  regard  to  nature,  where  he  does  not  make  but 
observes,  man  uses  the  same  principle  theoretically,  which 
in  art  and  moral  life  he  uses  also  practically ;  his  reason 
works  on  the  same  lines.  Thus  in  regarding  a  plant 
or  an  animal,  he  assumes  from  the  first  and  unconsciously, 
that  it  is  a  unity,  an  organism.  He  begins  to  analyze  it 
into  parts,  and  throughout  the  process  of  analyzing  it  and 
putting  it  together  again,  he  is  guided  by  the  conception 
of  the  plant  or  animal  as  a  whole,  having  a  principle 
which  makes  it  that  plant  or  animal.  An  organism  is 
a  natural  object  of  which  the  parts  can  be  seen  to  be 
means  to  an  end,  instruments  (opyava)  serving  a  purpose. 
The  conception  of  an  organism  thus  implies  teleology. 
Accordingly  modern  science,  however  much  it  repudiates 
teleology  of  a  certain  kind,  is  and  must  be  inspired  by 
the  spirit  of  teleology.  A  book  on  botany,  for  instance, 
exhibits  this  spirit  in  every  page,  for,  throughout,  the 
problem  which  the  botanist  proposes  to  himself  is  to 
discover   the    function   of  something    (its  (pyov) l.     But 

1  [In  the  sciences  which  deal  with  what  we  call,  by  comparison,  in- 
organic nature,  the  conceptions  of  '  organism  '  and  'function1  are  of 
course  not  prominent,  hut  it  is  nevertheless  obvious  that  everything  in 
nature  is  understood  through  the  connexion  of  its  own  elements  and  by 
the  way  it  acts  on  and  is  acted  upon  by  Other  things,  that  is  by  the  part 
it  plays  in  relation  to  other  elements  in  an  ordered  whole.  Cf  llcthtiica, 
p.  173.)     The  '  tclcological  view'  as  applied  to  nature  generally  is  simply 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      225 

when  scientific  men  repudiate  teleology  they  are  right 
so  far  as  they  are  insisting  on  this  :  that  we  must  not 
interpret  the  postulate  that  everything  has  its  function  to 
mean  that  each  particular  thing  has  its  end  in  serving 
some  other  particular  thing ;  and  that  we  must  not  allow 
the  postulate  to  make  us  anticipate  the  results  of  in- 
vestigation. It  is  one  thing  to  say  we  can  only  interpret 
nature  if  we  suppose  it  to  have  some  meaning,  and 
another  thing  to  say  that  the  first  meaning  we  find  in 
things  is  the  true  one. 

The  view  then  which  sees  everywhere  means  and  ends 
is  emphatically  the  view  of  Greek  philosophy.  This  may 
be  simply  expressed  in  Greek  phraseology  by  saying  that 
the  one  question  is,  What  is  the  good  ?  For,  to  put  the 
matter  in  a  summary  way  :  the  word  'good '  means  that 
which  anything  is  meant  to  do  or  to  be.  The  use  of  the 
word  implies  a  certain  ultimate  hypothesis  as  to  the  nature 
of  things,  namely  that  there  is  reason  operating  in  the 
world,  in  man  and  in  nature.  This  reason  shows  itself 
everywhere  in  the  world  in  this  particular  way,  that 
wherever  there  are  a  number  of  elements  co-existent 
there  will  be  found  a  certain  unity,  a  certain  principle 
which  correlates  them,  through  which  alone  they  are 
what  they  are,  and  in  the  light  of  which  alone  they  can 
be  understood.  Thus  the  good  becomes  to  Plato  both 
the  ultimate  condition  of  morality  and  the  ultimate 
condition  of  understanding.  These  are  not  two  things, 
but  one  and  the  same  principle  showing  itself  in  different 
subject-matters. 

To  come  back  to  human  life  and  morality,  how  does 
this  view  apply  to  them  ?     In  the  first  place,  it  implies 

the  recognition  of  this  fact.  The  significance  of  it  will  be  seen  later  in 
considering  Plato's  theory  of  science. — Ed.] 

VOL.  II.  Q 


226  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

that  the  life  of  human  society  and  that  of  the  individual 
will  inevitably  be  regarded  as  a  certain  adaptation  of 
means  to  an  end,  and  that  human  society  and  the  in- 
dividual soul  will  be  regarded  as  organisms.  Thus,  as 
regards  society,  at  the  beginning  of  Book  IV,  where  the 
question  is  raised  whether  we  are  making  the  Guardians 
happy,  the  reply  is  that  you  can  only  consider  the  well- 
being  of  a  part  when  you  have  considered  the  good  of 
the  whole.  So  again  in  Book  VIII  the  ruined  spendthrift 
is  described  as  seeming  to  be  a  member  of  the  community 
without  really  being  so,  because  he  is,  so  to  speak,  in- 
organic l.  And  the  whole  decline  of  human  society 
which  Plato  describes  in  Book  VIII  consists  in  its 
gradually  ceasing  to  be  organic.  It  is  easy  to  see  the 
bearing  of  this  idea  on  virtue.  Virtue  is  that  quality 
of  a  thing  which  makes  it  good  of  its  kind  ;  that  it  is 
good  of  its  kind  means  that  it  does  its  work  well ; 
a  morally  good  man  is  one  who  does  his  work  well  ; 
the  man  who  does  his  work  well  is  the  man  who  fills 
the  place  assigned  to  him  in  the  world  well.  The  as- 
sumption, as  regards  society,  is  that  every  man  has  his 
place  and  his  work.  And  the  same  idea  of  an  organism 
in  which  each  part  has  its  place  and  its  work  is  applied 
also  to  the  individual  soul.  The  virtue  of  the  soul  is  that 
each  part  of  it  should  do  its  work  well ;  and  what  the 
work  of  each  part  is,  is  determined  by  the  good  or  interest 
of  the  whole  soul.  Whether  any  given  act  you  do  is 
good  may  be  simply  tested  by  the  question,  Can  you 
honestly  say  that  it  contributes  to  the  good  of  you  taken 

a  whole  ? 

Thus  the  notion  of  the  good,  in  its  moral  application, 
resembles  the  notion  of  principle.     A  man  of  principle 

1   /xrjSlv  uvra  rwv  rfjs  ttuKkus  ntpwi'.      552  A. 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      227 

means  a  man  who  can  be  said  more  than  most  men  to 
live  with  a  purpose,  or  (if  you  like)  consistently,  a  con- 
centrated man,  whose  acts,  thoughts,  and  desires  converge 
to  some  one  end  l.  It  might  be  said  that  this  description 
would  include  any  man  who  had  a  strong  will,  good  or 
bad.  We  should  reply  that  every  man  is  really  an 
element  in  a  world,  in  a  society,  ultimately  in  the  koij}ios, 
the  intelligible  order  of  the  universe.  Accordingly  the 
purpose  which  dominates  his  life,  the  good  for  which  he 
lives,  will  be  good  in  itself  in  proportion  as  it  serves 
a  wider  purpose,  and  ultimately  the  purpose  or  good  of 
the  order  of  the  world.  As  every  picture,  every  ship, 
every  man's  life,  everything  which  is  an  ordered  and 
organized  whole,  may  be  called  a  Koa-fios,  a  little  world, 
so  the  whole  world,  if  we  could  see  it,  is  the  k6<tiaos,  the 
one  order  or  whole  in  which  all  the  rest  are  organic 
parts.  This  idea  is  worked  out  in  the  Timaens,  and  is 
the  animating  thought  of  that  dialogue ;  it  is  applied 
there  primarily  to  the  physical  universe,  but  is  applicable 
also  to  society  and  human  life  2,  and  it  is  so  applied  in 
the  Republic. 

A  mans  life  then  is  morally  good  in  proportion  as  it 
exhibits  purpose,  and  not  merely  purpose,  but  a  purpose 
going  beyond  himself.  It  is  good  in  proportion  to  its 
concentration  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  which  it  embraces  and  the 
width  of  the  interests  it  serves.  The  greater  part  of  our 
lives  is  practically  purposeless,  and  it  is  just  for  that 
reason  that  they  come  to  so  little.  We  have  an  idea 
of  something  of  supreme  value,  some  good,  but  as  to 

1  This   is    what  is    expressed    by    the    metaphor  of  harmony  in  443 
D.  &  E. 

2  Cf.  e.g.  Timaeits,  47  D,  where  KaraHoa^rjaii  of  the  soul  is  spoken  of. 

Q2 


228  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

what  it  is  we  are  '  in  darkness ' ;  we  do  not  see  where  we 
are  going  or  what  we  are  doing ;  and  therefore  most  of 
the  means  we  use,  most  of  the  so-called  good  things 
which  are  the  immediate  objects  of  our  aims,  are  of  little 
profit  to  us  (505  e).  This  is  the  case  even  with  the 
actions  which  we  do  in  accordance  with  our  views  of 
justice  and  honour.  Hence  the  necessity  that  the 
guardians,  whose  business  it  is  to  govern  others  and 
to  direct  the  moral  purpose  of  the  community,  should 
have  knowledge  of  the  good.  A  man  who  does  not  see 
what  is  the  good  of  justice  or  honour  (what  is  the  place 
that  it  holds  in  the  world)  will  not  be  much  of  a  guardian 
of  it,  for  he  has  no  firm  hold  of  it  (506  A).  We  see  then 
why  it  has  been  said  that  the  conception  of  the  good  is 
wanted  to  fill  up  our  sketchy,  fragmentary  view  of  human 
life,  and  to  give  it  finish  (aKpifieia).  The  more  a  man  sees 
what  he  is  going  after,  the  more  he  will  see  life  not  as 
a  mere  outline,  but  as  a  whole  with  a  structure  and 
a  plan. 

Further,  the  more  this  is  the  case  with  a  man,  the 
more  his  life  will  become  a  work  of  intelligence  on  his 
own  part,  and  intelligible  to  other  people.  We  under- 
stand things  just  in  proportion  as  we  sec  the  good  of 
them  ;  and  the  supreme  good,  the  end  to  which  all  things 
converge,  is,  in  Plato's  metaphor,  the  sun  that  gives  light 
to  the  intelligible  universe.  Intelligibility  is  the  reflected 
light  of  the  supreme  purpose  which  pervades  the  world 
and  is  reflected  through  various  media  to  us.  Everything 
in  the  world  in  its  measure  reveals,  or  is  the  appearance 
of,  the  good.  We  may  say  therefore,  to  give  a  general 
statement  of  Plato's  conception,  that  for  a  man  to  attain 
the  good,  so  far  as  it  is  given  to  man  to  do  so,  would  be 
for  him  to  live  in  the  light.     So  to  live  means  that  he 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      229 

should  realize  constantly  his  position  in  the  economy 
of  things,  in  the  society  of  which  he  is  a  member,  in 
humanity,  in  the  world.  And,  seeing  his  position,  he 
would  realize  how  he  can  best  be  that  which  he  is  and 
best  do  that  which  he  does.  We  see  then  how  closely 
related  morality  and  knowledge  are  in  Plato's  mind. 
This  ideal  of  a  man's  life  might  equally  well  be  described 
as  perfect  knowledge  and  understanding  (so  far  as  that 
is  possible)  of  himself  and  of  his  own  life,  or  as  perfect 
performance  (so  far  as  that  is  possible)  of  his  true  function 
in  the  world  of  which  he  is  a  part.  From  both  points 
of  view,  the  conception  of  what  we  call  an  organic  whole 
with  a  unifying  principle  in  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
Plato's  conception.  On  the  one  hand  to  understand  the 
world,  or  any  bit  of  it,  is  to  see  it  in  the  light  of  the 
good,  that  is  to  see  how  the  different  parts  of  it  converge 
to  their  common  end.  On  the  other  hand,  to  be  perfectly 
good  is  '  to  do  one's  own  business '  (ra  avrov  ttpolttclv), 
which  always  means  to  do  what,  in  virtue  of  what  one 
is,  one  can  do  best,  and  what  contributes  best  to  the 
good  of  the  whole  of  which  one  is  a  part. 

We  have  seen  that  the  good  is  also  the  end  of  life. 
When  man  is  spoken  of  as  living  for  an  end  (re'Aos),  we 
have  to  remember  that  the  Greek  word  primarily  means, 
not  an  end  in  the  sense  of  what  we  come  to  last,  but 
the  finished  or  consummated  work.  In  the  case  of  man, 
the  end  is  just  to  be,  in  the  course  of  his  life,  in  his 
imperfect  way  what  nature  has  given  him  the  capacity 
to  be.  Thus  when  we  speak  of  the  good  as  the  end  of 
life  we  must  guard  against  supposing  that  it  is  any  single 
tangible  thing  which  a  man  can  get  and  have  done  with. 
It  is  an  ideal  which  cannot  possibly  be  attained,  or  it 
would   cease  to  be  an  ideal.     This   is  just   as  true  of 


230         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

Aristotle's  ideal  as  of  Plato's ;  just  as  true  of  the 
Utilitarian  ideal  as  of  any  other.  Everybody  means 
by  the  ultimate  ideal  not  wealth,  health,  power,  or 
knowledge,  but  always  something  which  makes  these 
good  to  him,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  nobody  is 
ever  finally  satisfied,  or  sits  down  and  says,  '  I  have  the 
good.'  The  difference  between  one  theory  about  life 
and  another  does  not  concern  this  point ;  it  lies  in  the 
particular  ways  in  which  men  conceive  of  the  ultimate 
good,  and  in  the  ways  in  which  they  connect  this  good 
with  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

The  good,  as  we  remarked  at  starting,  is  represented 
by  Plato  not  only  as  the  end  of  life  and  as  the  cause  of 
things  being  understood,  but  also  as  the  source  of  the 
being  of  everything  in  the  world  ;  it  actually  makes 
things  what  they  are,  and  sustains  them  or  keeps  them 
in  being.  What  Plato  means  by  this  may  be  seen  from 
the  passage  in  Book  IV  (already  referred  to)  where  he 
is  answering  the  question  whether  the  guardians  would 
be  happy.  If  one  takes  a  human  society  one  sees  that 
it  is  literally  true  that  a  member  of  that  society  is 
exactly  what  he  does  in  that  society,  just  as  a  hand  or 
a  foot  is  what  it  does  in  the  body.  For  the  function 
or  tpyov  of  a  thing  is  its  being ;  you  cannot  separate  the 
two  ideas.  If  you  arc  asked  what  anything  is,  every 
answer  you  give  describes  a  function  of  the  thing.  The 
being  of  a  thing  is  its  activity.  When  a  man  ceases  to 
do  that  which  makes  him  himself,  he  has  really  ceased 
to  be  that  man  ;  if  he  is  performing  no  civic  function  he 
is  no  citizen,  just  as  if  you  cut  off  a  foot  from  the  body 
it  is  not  a  foot.  This  is  the  simple  principle  which 
makes  Plato  say  that  the  good  is  the  source  of  the  being 
of  things.     The  reality   of  things  is  what   they   mean  ; 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      23 r 

what  they  mean  is  determined  by  their  place  in  the 
order  of  the  world  ;  what  determines  their  place  in  the 
order  of  the  world  is  the  supreme  good,  the  principle  of 
that  order.  Thus  their  very  being  is  determined  by 
that  order  ;  they  realize  their  true  being  in  proportion 
as  they  recognize  that  order  ;  and  so  far  as  they  refuse 
to  recognize  it  they  fall  out  of  that  order,  and  literally 
give  up  so  much  of  their  being. 

The  same  conception  of  the  good  appears  in  other 
dialogues.  The  Gorgias  has  already  been  referred  to. 
In  the  Phaedo  the  good  is  represented  as  the  final  cause 
of  the  world,  which  is  what  in  the  truest  sense  makes 
and  holds  together  the  world ;  it  is  contrasted  with  what 
are  ordinarily  called  material  causes,  which  Plato  calls 
'  the  conditions  without  which  the  cause  would  not  be  a 
cause1.'  In  the  Philebus  it  is  represented  as  manifest- 
ing itself  in  three  principal  forms,  truth,  beauty,  and 
proportion2;  but  under  all  its  aspects  it  is  the  principle 
of  the  order  of  the  universe.  In  the  Timaeus,  where 
Plato  describes  in  '  picture  language '  the  creation  of  the 
world,  the  creator  (brifiLovpyos)  embodies  to  a  great  extent, 
in  a  personal  and  mythological  form,  the  same  attributes 
as  are  ascribed  to  the  form  of  the  good  in  the  Republic. 
He  makes  the  world  to  be  as  good  as  possible,  because 
he  is  himself  perfectly  good  and  therefore  free  from  all 
envy  and  perfectly  beneficent.  Further,  he  makes  the 
world  as  we  perceive  it  with  the  senses  (8o'£?7  fxer  atV0?;<recos- 
aXoyov  ho^arrTov)  after  the  pattern  of  a  world  which  is 
'  intelligible  '  (i'o?}<rei  fiera  Xoyov  ti  epikriiiTov)  ;  which  means 
not  that  there  are  really  two  worlds,  but  that,  as  we  might 
say,  the  world  as  it  is  revealed  through  the  senses  is  the 

1  Phaedo,  97  B  to  99  c.  2  Philebus,  64  B  to  65  a. 


232         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

manifestation  of  an  intelligible  order1.  At  the  end  of 
the  Timaeus  we  find  the  distinction  between  the  Creator 
and  the  intelligible  world  tending  to  disappear,  while 
the  sensible  world  itself  becomes  God  made  manifest  to 
human  senses  (Oebs  aio-0?/ros) 2.  As  in  the  Republic  we 
are  told  of  the  good  that  it  cannot  be  explained  to  us 
in  its  fullness  as  it  is,  so  in  the  Timaeus  we  are  told  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  the  gods  and  of  the 
origin  of  the  world  in  exact  and  altogether  consistent 
language 3.  The  two  dialogues  then,  in  spite  of  the 
difference  in  form,  agree  in  this,  that  the  world  as  we 
see  it  is  represented  as  revealing,  though  revealing  im- 
perfectly, those  intelligible  principles  upon  which  it  is 
really  constructed,  and  that  this  system  of  intelligible 
forms  is  represented  as  leading  up  to  and  depending  upon 
some  supreme  creative  and  sustaining  power.  Moreover, 
in  the  Timaeus  as  well  as  the  Republic,  we  are  told  that 
the  highest  bliss  of  man  consists  in  getting  to  be  at  one 
with  the  universe  of  which  he  is  a  part4.  In  the 
Timaeus  the  supreme  power  in  the  universe  is  described 
in  a  personal  way,  in  the  Republic  it  is  described  in 
what  we  call  an  abstract  way.  Of  the  two  ways  no 
doubt  Plato  thought  the  latter  truer.  Though  he  never 
hesitated  to  use  the  language  of  popular  Greek  theology 
to  express  philosophical  ideas  of  his  own,  he  often  lets 
us  know  that  this  language  did  not  and  could  not 
embody  the  truth  as  it  is.  The  '  form  of  the  good '  in 
the  Republic  occupies  the  place  in  regard  both  to  morals 
and   to   science    which   the   conception    of  God    would 

1   Timaeus,  27  D  to  30  B.  a  Ibid.  92  B. 

[bid.  29  h  &  (    [when    'the  gods'  is  seen   from  the  context  to  be 
equivalent  to  ''God.' — Ed.] 
'  [bid.  47B  &  c. 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      233 

occupy  in  a  modern  philosophy  of  morals  and  nature, 
if  that  philosophy  considered  the  conception  of  God  as 
essential  to  its  system.  Plato  in  the  Republic  does  not 
call  this  principle  God  but  form.  He  has  assigned  to 
a  form  or  principle  the  position  and  function  which 
might  be  assigned  to  God,  but  he  still  speaks  of  it  as 
a  form  or  principle.  With  this  reserve,  we  may  say  that 
the  easiest  way  to  give  Plato's  conception  a  meaning 
is  to  compare  it  with  certain  conceptions  of  the  divine 
nature,  for  example  with  the  conception  of  the  '  light  of 
the  world.' 

We  may  now  summarize  the  passage  in  which  the  504  e  to 
conception  of  the  '  good '  is  introduced  to  us  in  the 
Republic.  Certain  preliminary  and  more  or  less  accepted 
notions  of  the  good  are  first  brought  forward.  In  the 
first  place  everybody  allows  that,  whatever  else  the  good 
means,  it  is  that  which  gives  all  other  things  their  value. 
We  must  not  think  of  it  as  a  thing  that  can  be  taken 
from  or  added  to  health,  wealth,  and  the  rest ;  it  is 
simply  that  in  everything  which  makes  it  really  worth 
having ;  all  men,  philosophers  and  others  alike,  assume 
this.  Plato  goes  on  to  mention  two  current  theories 
as  to  what  is  most  worth  having  in  the  world.  Some 
call  pleasure  the  good,  holding  that  what  we  want  is  to 
feel  pleased,  to  get  enjoyment.  Others  call  intelligence 
the  good,  holding  that  what  we  want  is  to  understand 
things.  These  two  theories,  which  form  the  subject 
of  discussion  in  the  P/iilebi/s,  are  but  briefly  mentioned 
here.  Plato  simply  points  out  where  they  both  fall 
short.  Those  who  make  pleasant  feeling  the  one  object 
of  life  are  obliged  to  allow  distinctions  of  good  and  evil 
in  pleasure,  and  this  at  once  introduces  a  standard  other 
than  pleasure.     So  again  those  who  say  that  understand- 


234         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

ing  is  the  true  good  are  obliged  to  import  into  their 
definition  the  very  conception  that  they  suppose  them- 
selves to  be  denning ;  for  when  asked  the  question, 
'understanding  of  what?'  they  answer,  'understanding 
of  the  good ' ;  so  that  both  parties  are  full  of  inconsistency 
(■nXavq).  But  amid  all  this  inconsistency  one  thing  is 
certain,  that  people  are  in  earnest  on  this  matter,  and  that 
when  they  talk  about  the  good  they  mean  something 
real.  Many  are  found  quite  willing  to  put  up  with  the 
appearance  of  morality;  there  the  appearance  has  a  certain 
value ;  but  nobody  would  willingly  put  up  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  good,  for  the  good,  their  own  good,  is 
what  people  really  want.  But  it  is  just  this  real  thing 
about  which  they  are  so  much  in  the  dark;  every  soul 
surmises  that  there  is  something  of  this  sort,  something 
in  comparison  with  which  nothing  else  is  worth  having  ; 
but  every  soul  is  in  doubt  what  it  is,  and  is  without  any 
sure  or  permanent  belief  about  it  (airopel).  And  this 
very  uncertainty  makes  us  miss  what  is  good  in  other 
things ;  our  being  in  the  dark  about  the  real  or  ultimate 
good  re-acts  on  our  ideas  of  the  ordinary  '  good  things,1 
commonly  so  called,  and  makes  our  aims  uncertain. 
Certainly  then,  this  ultimate  good  is  the  one  thing  about 
which  men  who  are  going  to  govern  the  state  should  not 
be  in  the  dark. 
506  p,  to  After  this  preliminary  survey  of  accepted  beliefs  and 

diverse  theories,  Socrates,  who  has  been  spending  his 
life  in  enquiring  into  the  nature  of  the  good,  is  called 
upon  to  say  what  he  himself  thinks  about  it.  He  answers 
that  to  express  what  is  in  his  mind  all  at  once  would  be 
a  flight  above  his  power  ;  the  utmost  he  can  do  at  first 
is  to  explain  his  conception  of  the  good  by  an  analogy: 
'  I  cannot  show  you  the  good,  but  I  can  show  you  the 


509  c. 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      235 

child  of  the  good.'  From  what  follows  later  on  1  it  is 
pretty  clear  that  Plato  was  quite  serious  with  the  notion 
that  the  world,  as  it  is  to  human  sense,  is  a  manifestation, 
a  likeness  or  image,  of  an  intelligible  and  non-sensible 
order.  So  that  the  passage,  which  now  follows,  about 
the  sun.  is  not  merely  an  illustrative  simile,  but  expresses 
to  Plato's  mind  a  real  analogy  between  the  phenomena 
of  the  sensible  world  and  the  non-sensible  principles  they 
express2.     In  the  comparison  which  he  draws  the  good 


1  Cf.  the  passages  from  the  Timactis,  quoted  on  p.  232. 

2  [It  is  not  possible  to  reproduce  the  whole  of  this  passage  as  it  occurred 
in  the  lectures,  and  the  foregoing  sentences  as  they  stand  might  give 
a  false  impression  of  what  the  comparison  between  the  good  and  the  sun 
leads  to.  In  order  to  follow  the  main  course  of  Plato's  thought  we  must 
be  careful  at  first  not  to  press  this  comparison  at  all  beyond  the  points 
which  he  specifically  uses  it  to  bring  out.  The  position  of  the  sun 
in  the  visible  universe  here  supplies  Plato  with  imagery  to  express  the 
idea  that  the  good  is  the  source  of  all  knowledge  and  the  source  of  all 
being.  In  Book  VII  the  sun  affords  Plato  more  imagery  for  describing 
the  stages  by  which  man  may  be  led  up  to  a  clear  vision  of  the  good. 
Now  it  is  probable,  as  this  passage  in  the  lecture  suggests,  that  Plato  felt 
it  was  no  accident  that  made  this  imagery  available  for  him,  by  placing  in 
the  world,  as  seen  by  the  eye,  a  visible  object  thus  comparable  to  the  chief 
object  in  the  world  as  thought  could  make  it  known.  He  probably  thought 
that,  so  to  speak,  it  was  part  of  the  function  of  the  sun  thus  to  present 
a  type  of  the  good.  Compare  the  language  used  about  the  heavenly 
bodies  generally  in  VII,  529  c,  sq.,  and  the  passage  already  referred  to 
in  the  Timaetts,  47  A  to  E.  But  he  does  not  develop  this  idea,  and  the 
point  of  this  passage,  in  the  agreement  of  the  Republic,  lies  simply  in  the 
statement  that  the  good  is  the  cause  of  all  knowledge  and  of  all  being. 
In  the  following  passage  (the  comparison  of  the  divided  line)  where  this 
is  expanded  and  explained,  the  real  relation  of  the  good  to  the  visible 
world  begins  to  appear  in  its  main  outlines,  and  then  of  course  the  sun 
does  not  play  a  part  different  from  that  of  any  other  visible  object.  As 
we  make  an  advance  in  understanding  the  world  when  we  turn  our 
attention  from  things  as  we  see  them  to  the  unities  or  principles  which 
underlie  what  we  see,  so  we  make  a  further  advance  when  we  rise  from 
the  principles  which  thought  first  discovers  in  the  world  to  the  ultimate 
principle   of  all,  the  good.     As  the   varying   multitude    of  things  pre- 


236  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

is  said  to  be  in  the  intelligible  world  as  the  sun  is  in  the 
visible.  He  works  out  the  comparison  of  the  good  with 
the  sun  through  a  theory  of  light  and  of  vision  which 
was  wrong,  but  this  does  not  affect  the  points  which  he 
wished  to  bring  out  in  his  conception  of  the  good.  They 
are  briefly  these.  First,  the  good  is  the  source  of  in- 
telligence in  the  mind  and  intelligibility  in  the  object, 
just  as  the  sun  is  the  source  of  vision  in  the  eye  and 
of  visibility  in  its  object.  Truth  is  the  reflexion  of  the 
good  ;  the  world  is  intelligible  and  the  soul  intelligent  in 
proportion  as  the  good  is  strongly  or  weakly  reflected. 
Just  as  in  a  sense  there  are  colours  and  vision  without 
light,  so  we  may  speak  of  an  object  and  a  mind  as  being 
potentially  intelligible  and  intelligent ;  yet  there  is  not 
really  intelligence  and  truth  until  the  good  shines  upon 
the  mind  and  the  world.  Secondly,  as  the  sun  is  the 
source  not  only  of  light  and  vision,  but  also  of  the  actual 
generation  and  growth  of  the  organic  world,  so  the  good 
is  the  source  not  only  of  truth  and  knowledge,  but  actually 
of  the  life  and  being  of  the  world. 

This  passage  then  assigns  to  the  good  its  position  in 
the  world.  The  world  as  it  is  to  sense  is  the  image  and 
the  product  of  the  good,  and  the  world  as  it  is  to  intelli- 

sented  to  the  senses  are  made  what  they  are  by  laws  or  principles  which 
the  senses  do  not  directly  reveal,  so  the  whole  scheme  of  laws  or 
principles  which  thought  or  science  discovers  owes  its  being,  and  the 
things  of  sense  in  turn  owe  their  being,  to  one  ultimate  principle,  the 
good.  Such  is  Plato's  account  of  the  good  as  completed  by  subsequent 
passages.  Looking  then  at  the  passage  about  the  sun  in  its  place  in  the 
course  of  the  argument,  we  might  say  that  it  is  not  really  the  sun  in 
particular,  but  the  whole  visible  world,  whether  as  seen  or  as  understood 
l>y  thought,  that  is  the  child  of  the  good  in  whom  its  image  may  lie  traced. 
In  the  Timaens  the  metaphor  of  paternity  comes  up  again,  and  there  it  is 
tin    world,  not  the  sun  in  particular,  that  is  called  the  child  of  the  creator. 

Ed  ! 


GOOD  AS  SUPREME  OBJECT  OF  KNOWLEDGE      237 

gence  is  also  the  image  and  the  product  of  the  good  ; 
so,  we  might  say,  the  whole  world,  whether  as  it  is 
to  sense  or  as  it  is  to  intelligence,  whether  in  its  more 
superficial  or  in  its  more  profound  aspect,  reflects  the 
jrood. 


XI.    THE    FOUR   STAGES    OF 
INTELLIGENCE 

[Republic,  VI.  509  D  to  end.] 

509  u  to  the  HAVING  described  in  a  general  way  the  position  and 
function  of  the  good  in  knowledge,  Plato  goes  on  to 
distinguish  more  in  detail  the  stages  of  development 
through  which  the  human  mind  passes  or  might  pass 
from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  from  a  point  at  which 
the  x&jective  world-is,  so  to  say,  perfectly  dark  and 
unintelligible,  to  a  point  at  which  it  is  perfectly  lumi- 
nous. He  represents  to  us  by  a  very  obvious  symbol 
an  ascending  scale  of  mental  states  and  a  corresponding 
scale  of  objects  of  thought.  Imagine  a  vertical  straight 
line,  and  divide  it  into  four  parts.  The  line  must  be 
conceived  of  as  beginning  in  total  darkness  at  one  end, 
and  passing  up  to  perfect  light  at  the  other.  It  is 
a  continuous  line,  though  it  is  divided  into  sections. 
Plato,  in  choosing  this  symbol,  may  have  wished  to 
express  the  continuity  of  the  process  which  it  represents. 
At  any  rate  we  have  to  remember  that  there  is  no 
sudden  break  between  the  visible  and  the  intelligible 
world,  which  the  two  main  sections  of  the  line  stand  for  l, 

1    There   is  a  curious  uncertainly  as  to  whether  Plato  wrote  av'  iaa 
Tfx-qnara  or  avioa  rny/MTa,    i.e.    whether  the  line  is    divided   into  four 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        239 

The  scale  which  the  four  sections  of  the  line  represent 
is  a  scale  of  luminousness.  It  is  an  attempt  to  represent 
the  stages  through  which  the  human  mind  must  go  if 
it  would  arrive  at  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  world  ; 
and,  again,  an  attempt  to  represent  the  different  and  suc- 
cessive aspects  that  the  world  presents  to  the  human 
mind  as  it  advances  in  knowledge.  When  we  speak  of 
the  objects  of  the  mind's  thought  in  its  different  stages, 
we  should  divest  ourselves  of  the  notion  that  they  repre- 
sent four  different  classes  of  real  objects ;  they  only 
represent  four  different  views  of  the  world,  or  different 
aspects  of  the  same  objects.  For  what  we  call  the  same 
object  has  very  different  aspects  to  different  people  ;  for 
example,  the  scientific  botanist  and  the  person  who 
knows  no  botany  may  see  the  same  flower  as  far  as  the 
eyes  go,  but  they  miderstandit^in  totally  different  ways  ; 


equal  parts,  or  into  four  unequal  but  proportional  parts.  As  it  is  uncer- 
tain which  he  wrote,  and  as  the  line  is  never  referred  to  again,  it  is  not 
worth  while  trying  to  make  out  what  might  have  been  meant  by  the 
inequality  of  the  parts.  [I  think  it  is  clear  that  avian  (unequal)  is 
the  right  reading.  Otherwise  there  is  nothing  to  show  what  the  line 
symbolizes  ;  for  the  suggestion  in  the  lecture  that  the  line  passes  from 
total  darkness  to  complete  illumination  is  not  founded  on  anything  in 
the  text  of  the  present  passage,  but  derived  from  Plato's  use  of  the 
metaphor  of  light  in  the  preceding  and  following  passages.  But  if  we 
read  avioa  the  meaning  is  clear.  The  proportion  in  length  between 
the  different  sections  of  the  line  symbolizes  the  proportion  in  clearness 
or  in  profundity  of  insight  between  the  different  mental  states  described. 
Cf.  Kai  aoi  'iarai  aaiprjvfiq.  mil  aocKpiiq  npus  dAA^Aa,  k.t.A..,  509  D.  The 
sentence  is  not  brought  to  its  logical  completion,  but  it  starts  as  if  Plato 
was  going  to  state  a  proportion  between  the  mental  states,  as,  according 
to  this  reading,  he  has  already  stated  a  proportion  between  the  sections 
of  the  line.  That  proportion  would  obviously  have  been  :  (marrj/xt]  is  to 
5o£a,  in  respect  of  aaipTjvaa,  what,  within  the  sphere  of  5o£a,  seeing  real 
objects  is  to  seeing  shadows  ;  and,  further,  within  the  sphere  of  what 
we  have  called  emoT-fiftr),  vorjais  is  to  diavota  what  intuTTj/xT]  itself  is  to 
8o£a. — Ed.] 


240  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

to  the  former  it  is  the  image  of_aJl_bo£aju'ca1  _laj&s. 
Plato  is  anxious  throughout  to  emphasize  the  difference 
between  these  views  of  things.  They  differ  in  degree 
of  superficiality  and  profundity  as  well  as  of  obscurity 
and  luminousness.  This  means,  we  may__regard  pro- 
gress in  knowledge  as  a_  progress  from  the  most  super- 
ficial to  the  most  penetrating  view  of  things.  Hence 
the  relation  between  each  higher  and  each  lower  stage 
is  expressed  by  Plato  as  the  relation  between  seeing 
an  image  or  shadow  and  seeing  the  thing  imaged  or 
shadowed.  This  metaphor  bears  a  great  part  in  his 
theory  of  knowledge.  It  means  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  in  what  the  mind  perceives  at  each  stage 
than  in  what  it  perceives  in  the  stage  below.  There 
is  more  in  the  actual  solid  object  than  there  is  in  a 
mere  reflexion  or  picture  of  it ;  and  when  science  comes 
and  says  that  these  solid  objects,  which  we  call  the  real 
things  in  the  world,  are  not  the  ultimate  truth,  that  it 
is  the  principles  winch  they  embody  which  are  really 
worth  knowing,  that  not  some  particular  plant  or  animal, 
but  the  permanent  and  uniform  nature  which  appears 
in  all  such  things,  is  the  object  of  real  knowledge, 
then  science,  though  it  seems  to  be  leaving  the  real 
world  behind,  tells  us  more  than  the  ordinary  view 
of  things  tells  us. 

Through  these  different  stages  all  human  minds  which 
develop  their  powers  of  understanding  fully  must  more 
or  less  pass;  the  most  gifted  as  well  as  the  least  begins 
by  what  Plato  calls  seeing  things  as  images;  different 
minds  advance  to  different  distances  in  different  stages, 
and  the  same  mind  advances  to  different  stages  with 
different  parts  of  itself.  Plato's  ideal  for  education  is 
that,    recognizing   this    law  of    mental    development,    it 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        241 

should  provide  for  different  minds  by  giving  them, 
according  to  the  stage  they  are  in,  appropriate  objects 
of  thought,  and  should  lead  them  gradually,  according 
to  their  capacity,  and  as  easily  as  may  be,  to  the  truest 
view  of  things  of  which  they  are  capable.  Want  of 
education  in  this  sense  means  that  minds  which  ought 
to  have  advanced  further  remain  in  a  lower  stage,  and 
mistake  the  comparatively  superficial  view  of  truth  they 
get  there  for  the  whole  truth. 

The  four  stages  of  mental  development  are  called 
(beginning  with  the  lowest)  eUaata,  ttl<ttl$,  hiavoia,  and 
voria-Ls  (later  called  eirt,(rTijiJLr)).  The  two  former  are  stages 
of  what  has  previously  been  described  as  bo£a  ;  the  two 
latter  are  stages  of  what  has  been  called  yvuxns  or 
e7riaT?/^77  and  is  later  on  called  z^otjo-i?  (a  term  which  in  this 
passage  is  limited  to  the  higher  of  them) 1. 

(1)  The  most  superficial  view  of  the  world,  that  which 
conveys  least  knowledge  of  it,  is  called  by  Plato  dx-ao-La. 
The  word  has  a  double  meaning ;  it  has  its  regular 
meaning  of  conjecture,  and  an  etymological  meaning 
of  which  Plato  avails  himself,  the  perception  of  images, 
that  state  of  mind  whose  objects  are  of  the  nature  of 
mere  images  (eUoves).  There  is  a  connexion  between 
the  two  meanings  ;  when  we  talk  of  a  conjecture  we 
imply  that  it  is  an  uncertain  belief,  and  we  imply  also 
that  it  arises  from  a  consideration  of  the  appearance 
or  surface  of  the  thing  in  question.  Plato  has  availed 
himself  of  both  meanings  of  the  word,  so  as  to  express 
a  certain  character  or  property  of  the  object  of  mental 
apprehension  and  a  certain  state  of  mind  in  the  subject ; 
the  mental  state  is  one  of  very  little  certitude,  its  objects 
are  of  the  nature  of  '  images,'  shadows  and  reflexions. 
1  Cf.  533  E  sq. 

VOL.  II.  R 


242         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

Why  does  he  describe  this  lowest  group  of  objects 
as  shadows  or  reflexions  ?  Shadows,  images,  and  dreams, 
are  the  most  obvious  types  of  unreality,  and  the  contrast 
between  them  and  realities  is  very  striking  to  early 
thinkers,  as  it  is  to  a  mind  which  is  just  beginning  to 
think.  In  what  respect  does  a  shadow  differ  from  the 
real  thing?  It  resembles  it  merely  in  the  outline,  and 
that  is  often  very  vague  and  inexact  ;  the  rest  of  the 
real  thing,  its  solidity,  its  constitution,  even  its  colour, 
vanishes  in  the  shadow.  In  what  respect  does  a  reflexion 
differ  from  the  real  thing  ?  A  reflexion  reproduces  more 
of  the  real  object  than  a  shadow  does  ;  its  outline  is  very 
fairly  defined  and  exact ;  the  colour  of  the  object  is 
retained  to  a  certain  extent ;  but  a  reflexion  is  still  only 
in  two  dimensions.  Any  state  of  mind  of  which  the 
object  stands  to  some  other  object  as  a  shadow  or 
reflexion  does  to  the  real  thing,  is  elKarria. 

This  at  once  opens  an  enormous  field  ;  but  what 
particular  states  of  mind  had  Plato  in  view?  We  may 
find  an  example  of  his  meaning  in  the  Allegory  of  the 
Cave,  the  prisoners  in  which  sec  only  shadows  of 
images  (ayaKuara) 1.  An  instance  of  an  image,  in  the 
language  of  that  allegory,  would  be  the  conception  of 
justice  as  embodied,  perhaps,  in  Athenian  law.  which 
according  to  Plato  would  be  a  very  imperfect  embodi- 
ment. A  step  further  from  reality,  a  shadow  of  that 
image,  would  be  the  misrepresentation  of  the  Athenian 
law  by  a  special  pleader.  Suppose  a  man  believed  that 
justice  really  was  this  misrepresentation,  his  state  of 
mind   would    be    (Uaaia ;    justice    would    come    to    him 

1  VII,  517  1).  Note  that  the  tlxdvts  of  our  present  passage  (509  e)  do 
not  correspond  to  the  dya\fiara  of  the  Allegory  of  the  Cave,  but 
to  the  shadows  of  the  aydXnara. 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        243 

through  a  doubly  distorting  medium,  first  through  the 
medium  of  Athenian  legislation,  and  further  through  the 
words  of  the  lawyer. 

We  may  take  another  example  from  Book  X,  where 
Plato  works  out  this  idea  in  his  attack  on  the  imitative 
arts.  The  effect  of  arts  like  painting  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  artist  puts  before  us  not  the  actual  thing,  but 
its  image  (aScoAoz-)  or  its  appearance  at  a  certain  distance. 
He  puts  things  before  us  not  '  as  they  are '  but  '  as  they 
appear '  (the  word  dKacria  is  not  used,  but  it  is  the  same 
idea).  He  is  so  far  like  a  man  who  goes  about  holding 
up  a  mirror  before  things1.  If  any  one  then  were  so  far 
taken  in  by  the  perspective  and  colouring  as  to  think  the 
picture  before  him  the  actual  thing,  he  would  be  in 
a  state  of  dKaaia.  The  moment  a  man  knows  that 
a  shadow  is  only  a  shadow,  or  a  picture  only  a  picture, 
he  is  no  longer  in  a  state  of  euao-ia  in  that  particular 
respect.  But,  though  the  arts  do  not  produce  illusion  of 
that  simple  kind,  Plato  attacks  them  in  Book  X,  entirely 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  constantly  used  to  produce 
and  stimulate  a  multitude  of  illusory  ideas  of  another 
kind.  He  takes  painting  as  the  most  obvious  instance  of 
imitative  art,  but  he  applies  the  principle  which  he  makes 
it  illustrate  to  words.  Poetry  and  rhetoric  are  the  great 
sources  of  the  kind  of  illusion  he  has  in  mind.  The  poet 
gives  us  an  image  of  his  experience  ;  but,  if  we  think  we 
know  all  about  a  thing  after  reading  about  it,  we  are  just 
as  much  deluded  as  if  we  took  a  picture  for  the  reality. 

1  Like  the  pleaders  in  the  Allegory  of  the  Cave  he  gives  us  a  piece  of 
work  which,  in  Plato's  language,  is  two  steps  removed  from  the  reality. 
First  comes  the  '  idea '  of  the  thing  represented,  beauty  ;  then  the  first 
copy  or  expression  of  that  'idea,'  in  the  beautiful  human  face  (the  actual 
thing)  ;  then  comes  the  second  copy,  the  artist's  representation  of  that 
face  (the  reflexion  or  shadow). 

R  2 


244  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

When  then  Plato  talks  of  '  images,'  he  is  not  thinking 
specially  of  pictures  or  statues,  what  he  is  primarily 
thinking  of  is  images  produced  by  words.  Sensitiveness 
to  the  force  of  words  is  a  marked  feature  of  Plato  ;  and 
he  seems  to  have  felt  intensely  the  power,  of  evil  they 
may  have  when  used  by  a  skilful  sophist  '.  as  if  his  own 
great  mastery  over  them  had  made  him  realize  the  possible 
perversion  of  such  skill.  He  looks  upon  language  as  the 
power  of  putting  images  between  men's  minds  and  the 
facts.  He  felt  this  about  rhetoric  still  more  than  about 
poetry  2,  the  two  being  closely  associated  in  his  mind, 
and  both  being  arts  of  using  language  which  exercised 
a  great  power  over  the  Greeks  3. 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  Plato  regarded  the 
power  of  language  as  only  a  bad  thing,  and  incapable  of 
good.  In  Book  III  we  have  the  metaphor  of  images 
used  in  a  good  sense  ;  and  we  learn  that  it  is  one  of  the 
functions  of  art  (including  both  poetry  and  the  plastic 
arts)  to  put  before  us  true  images  of  self-command, 
courage,  generosity  &c,  and  to  train  the  mind  to  recognize 
them  4.  The  scholar,  he  says,  who  knows  his  letters  must 
be  able  to  recognize  them  just  as  well  in  their  reflexions 
in  water  or  in  a  mirror,  and  so  the  jjiuv(tiku*  will  recognize 
the  types  of  beauty  and  the  reflexions  of  virtue  in  art. 
Thus  }xov(tlk)'i  is  conceived  in  this  passage  as  the  education 
of  etKao-ta,  a  training  of  the  soul  to  read  the  reproductions 
of  reality  in  art  aright  ;  it  is  intended  to  develop  rightly 
that  side  of  the  soul  on  which  it  is  appealed  to  by  images, 
a  condition  of  mind  which  is  predominant  in  children  and 
undeveloped  races,  and   in   many  men  throughout  their 

'   Cf.  Sophist,  234i:-E.     Cf.  254  A.  B.  2  Cf.  VII.  517  n. 

3  Cf.  Gurgias,  501  K  sqq.,  where  poetry  and  rhetoric  are  classed  together. 

1  401  l:  and  402  11  sq. 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        245 

whole  lives.  In  Book  X,  on  the  other  hand,  where  Plato 
denounces  imitative  art  and  exposes  its  dangers,  all  that 
he  says  is  dominated  by  the  idea  that  the  artist  gives  us 
only  the  external  appearance  of  things.  His  general  view 
of  art  may  be  thus  expressed :  the  right  function  of  art 
is  to  put  before  the  soul  images  of  what  is  intrinsically 
great  or  beautiful,  and  so  to  help  the  soul  to  recognize 
what  is  great  or  beautiful  in  actual  life  ;  when  art  makes 
people  mistake  what  is  only  appearance  for  what  is  more 
than  appearance,  it  is  performing  its  wrong  function. 

We  are  all  in  a  state  of  dKao-Ca  about  many  things, 
and  to  get  a  general  idea  of  the  sort  of  views  that  Plato 
had  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of  shadows  and  reflexions 
which  are  taken  for  realities  we  must  think  how  many 
views  there  are  which  circulate  in  society  and  form  a  large 
part  of  what  we  call  our  knowledge,  but  which  when  we 
examine  them  are  seen  to  be  distorted,  imperfect  repre- 
sentations of  fact,  coming  to  us  often  through  the  media 
of  several  other  men's  minds,  and  the  media  of  our  own 
fancies  and  prejudices. 

The  literal  translation  of  eiKa<ua  is  '  imagination.'  But 
it  would  be  very  misleading  to  translate  the  one  word  by 
the  other;  for,  while  eiKacria  expresses  the  superficial  side 
of  what  we  call  imagination,  it  does  not  express  the  deeper 
side.  Imagination  in  English  has  two  senses.  In  one 
sense  it  really  does  answer  to  Plato's  conception  of  seeing 
images.  When  we  say  that  something  is  a  mere  imagina- 
tion, or  that  a  man  is  the  slave  of  his  own  imagination, 
we  do  mean  to  describe  a  very  superficial  view  of  things. 
But  when  we  say  that  a  poet  is  a  man  of  great  imagina- 
tion we  mean  almost  the  exact  opposite.  We  mean  that 
the  appearance  of  things  suggests  to  him  all  kinds 
of  deep  truth  which  to  the  ordinary  person  it  does  not 


246  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

suggest  at  all.  The  great  poet,  while  it  is  true  that  he 
regards  things  on  their  sensuous  side,  is  great  because 
he  reads  through  what  his  senses  show  him,  and  arrives 
by  imagination  at  truths  not  different  in  kind  from  those 
which  another  might  arrive  at  by  what  we  call  thinking. 
Plato  seems  much  more  impressed  by  the  possible  misuse 
of  imaginative  work  than  by  its  possible  use,  though  he 
himself  is  a  standing  example  of  what  the  union  of 
thought  and  imagination  can  do.  And  it  is  an  undoubted 
fact  that  we  are  apt  to  live  habitually  in  an  unreal  world 
in  which  we  take  the  image  for  the  reality,  instead  of 
reading  the  reality  by  the  image. 

Plato's  conception  of  the  mental  condition  of  the  great 
body  of  men  is  put  before  us  in  the  Allegory  of  the 
Cave ;  their  state  is  for  the  most  part  such  that  all  that 
occupies  their  minds  is  of  the  nature  of  shadows  ;  it  is, 
further,  such  that  they  firmly  believe  these  shadows  to 
be  real  and  the  only  reality.  And  in  this  lies  their 
illusion,  for  so  long  as  a  man  realizes  that  the  shadows 
are  shadows  there  is  no  illusion1.  Their  state  is  also 
one  of  great  uncertainty.  Among  the  prisoners  in  the 
allegory  those  who  are  honoured  and  rewarded  most 
are  those  who  are  quickest  at  learning  to  remember  the 
order  in  which  the  shadows  pass,  and  who  are  thus  best 
able  to  prophesy  what  will  pass  next.  This  is  meant  to 
illustrate  how  uncertain  or  conjectural  their  judgments 
necessarily  are.  In  proportion  as  our  knowledge  is  not 
first-hand,  not  derived  from  actual  contact  with  things, 
we  ought  to  regard  our  beliefs  as  uncertain. 

1  Wc  must  remember,  however,  that  the  degrees  of  such  illusion  as 
Plato  is  speaking  of  arc  very  subtle  ;  there  are,  to  develop  his  metaphor, 
many  intermi  diate  Stag*  I  between  taking  the  shadow  as  altogether  real 
and  ceasing  altogether  to  be  misled  by  it. 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        247 

(2)  Thus  dnaaia  is  conjecture,  and  the  next  stage, 
maris,  is  so  called  because  it  contrasts  with  ehac-ia  in 
regard  to  certitude,  riums-  is  a  feeling  of  certainty. 
When  people  have  themselves  come  in  contact  with 
things,  they  feel  far  more  certain  about  them  than  if  they 
had  only  come  into  connexion  with  them  through  others, 
and  tuoti?  is  the  state  of  mind  in  which  we  know  what  we 
call  the  actual  tangible  things  of  life  ;  these  are  not  the 
sole  reality  by  any  means,  yet  we  feel  about  them  a  good 
deal  of  certainty. 

We  must  remember  that  both  dK.a<Tia  and  ttio-tls  are  sub- 
divisions of  '  opinion  '  (ho£a),  so  that  what  has  been  said  of 
it  is  true  of  them.  To  the  state  of  mind  called  opinion 
truth  and  reality  exist  under  the  form  of  a  number  of 
separate  and  apparently  independent  objects,  each  with 
a  character  and  position  of  its  own,  whether  these  objects 
are  real  or  reflected.  Whether,  for  instance,  one's  know- 
ledge of  justice  is  derived  from  books  or  from  what  we 
are  told,  or  derived  from  personal  experience,  it  is  equally 
true  that,  so  long  as  we  are  in  the  state  of  '  opinion,'  the 
only  answer  we  could  give  to  the  question  What  is  justice, 
would  be  to  point  to  some  particular  acts  or  laws  or 
institutions.  Still  we  feel  a  difference  when  we  come 
out  of  the  region  in  which  we  can  only  know  things  at 
second  hand,  or  can  only  imagine  them,  into  that  in 
which  we  have  to  do  with  them  ourselves.  It  is  the 
transition  from  uncertainty  to  a  sort  of  certainty  *. 

Further,  just  as  there  is  a  good  state  of  tlnaaia  and  also 
a   bad   state,  a   state   which   contains   some   truth   and 

1  The  state  of  'right  opinion'  described  in  Books  III  and  IV,  with  its 
attendant  virtue  of  courage,  i.e.  tenacity,  is  a  state  of  ir«rm.  It  is 
a  state  of  mind  which  is  continually  being  tested  by  action,  as  contrasted 
with  a  previous  state  of  mind  in  which  the  soul  was  not  in  contact  with 
real  life. 


248         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

a  state  which  contains  none,  so  it  is  with  all  opinion. 
It  is  important  to  remember  this,  for  in  Book  III 
1  right  opinion '  is  the  sum  of  virtue,  the  virtue  of  the 
Guardian ;  so  that  it  is  surprising  to  us  when,  in  Book 
V,  Plato  begins  to  speak  of  opinion  in  a  tone  of  con- 
tempt. Now  et/catria  is  only  described  as  a  state  of 
mind  which  we  have  to  get  out  of,  when  it  is  regarded 
as  one  which  we  are  satisfied  with  and  accept  as  final ; 
the  harm  of  the  shadow  or  reflexion  arises  only  when 
one  takes  it  for  something  else ;  illusion  is  the  misinter- 
pretation of  appearance,  but  the  appearance  which 
is  the  occasion  of  illusion  is  capable  also  of  being 
rightly  interpreted.  And  so  with  opinion  generally ; 
it  is  only  so  far  as  one  believes  the  object  of  opinion 
to  be  ultimate  truth  that  it  is  a  thing  to  get  rid  of. 
'  Right  opinion,'  in  which  true  principles  are  embodied 
however  imperfectly,  is  a  state  of  mind  which  is  quite 
laudable,  and  beyond  which  we  cannot  get  as  regards 
the  great  bulk  of  our  experience.  What  is  unsatisfac- 
tory in  this  state  of  mind  is  that  it  is  bound  up  with 
certain  particular  objects,  and  is  liable  to  be  shaken 
when  we  discover  that  these  objects  are  not  so  fixed  and 
permanent  in  their  character  as  we  thought,  but  depend 
on  their  surroundings  for  their  properties.  Then  the 
mind  is  set  to  ask,  If  what  I  have  known  as  justice,  or 
beauty,  or  weight,  changes  in  this  extraordinary  way, 
when  seen  in  different  relations,  and  is  in  such  a  continual 
state  of  fluctuation,  what  can  justice,  or  beauty,  or  weight 
be1? 

It  is  this  feeling  or  perception  that  the  objects  of  5o'fa 
are   self-contradictory  which   sets   the  mind  to   ask   for 
other  forms  of  truth.     The  sense  of  difficulty  and  cm- 
1   (  f.  VII.  524. 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        249 

barrassmcnt  arising  when  what  we  are  accustomed  to 
believe  in  fails  drives  us  to  look  for  something  else. 
We  are  impelled  to  search  for  what  Plato  calls  'forms.' 
principles  or  laws  which-ma-ke  these_yarious  things  what 
they  are,  or  for  the  unity  which  underlies  this  changing 
and  manifold  world. 

(3)  Plato  calls  the  stage  of  mental  development  in 
which  he  describes  us  as  beginning  to  do  this,  hiavoia. 
The  word  itself  gives  no  clear  idea  of  the  thing  meant ; 
it  was  to  the  Greeks  what  the  word  '  intellect '  is  to  us. 
Like  intellect,  it  has  no  very  fixed  meaning,  and  de- 
scribes no  one  state  of  mind  *,  but  it  was  a  word  obviously 
applicable  to  the  state  of  mind  of  which  the  scientific 
man  is  the  best  instance.  Plato's  illustrations  of  hiavoia 
are  taken  from  the  only  sciences  of  his  time;  and,  though 
there  are  differences,  there  is  a  great  substantial  simi- 
larity between  the  things  he  says  of  it,  and  modern 
ideas  of  what  we  should  call  the  scientific  habit  of 
mind2. 

Plato  gives  us  two  characteristics  of  this  state,  without 
showing  us  the  connexion  between  them  :  (a)  It  deals 
with,  sensible  things,  but  it  employs  them  as  symbols  of 
something  which  is  not  sensible ;  (b)  it  reasons  from 
'  hypotheses.'  Arithmetic  and  geometry  are  the  most 
obvious  types  of  hiavoia  in  both  these  respects. 

1  Thus  in  Aristotle  SiavorjriKal  dperal  is  a  name  which  covers  ability  in 
all  high  forms  of  intellectual  activity,  in  art,  philosophy,  morality,  &c. 

a  The  word  is  often  translated  by  '  understanding,'  while  votjois,  to 
which  it  is  opposed,  is  translated  by  'reason,'  because  these  are  words 
which  have  been  used  to  describe  a  lower  and  a  higher  phase  of  intelli- 
gence. Atavoia  and  vo-qais  or  tm<TTr)/AT]  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  one 
another  as  '  Verstand  '  and  '  Vernunft'  in  Kant;  and  Coleridge  gave  the 
words  '  understanding '  and  '  reason '  technical  senses  intended  to  cor- 
respond with  'Verstand'  and  'Vernunft.' 


250         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

(a)  The  arithmetician  and  the  geometrician,  while  they 
use  visible  forms,  are  not  actually  thinking  of  them. 
The  geometrician  is  thinking  about  the  triangle  or  the 
circle  as  such ;  he  uses  the  circle  which  he  draws  as  a 
symbol  of  this ;  and  though,  without  such  symbols,  the 
study  of  mathematics  would  be  impossible,  the  circle 
which  he  draws  remains  a  mere  symbol.  Visible  images 
such  as  he  uses  are  just  the  objects  of  opinion — separate, 
independent,  sensible  things,  each  with  a  position  and 
character  of  its  own.  The  objects  of  which  these  '  real 
things '  are  symbols  to  him  are  what  Plato  calls  forms., 
such  as  the  '  form  of  the  triangle  '  or  '  the  triangle  itself,' 
for  these  two  expressions  are  used  indifferently. 

What  Plato  here  says  of  mathematics  applies  to  all 
science  whatever.  All  science  treats  the  actual  objects 
of  experience  as  symbols.  It  is  always  looking  for  laws, 
and  the  sensible  things  around  us  become  to  it  symbols 
of  them,  or,  in  other  words,  are  looked  upon  only  as 
the  expression  of  principles  ;  the  botanist  or  zoologist 
has  to  speak  of  particular  animals  or  plants,  but  it 
does  not  matter  to  him  what  particular  animal  or  plant 
of  the  same  species  he  takes.  We  express  the  same 
fact  by  saying  that  science  is  abstract.  The  man  of 
science  necessarily  and  consciously  leaves  out  of  account 
a  great  deal  in  the  objects  he  contemplates,  and  fixes 
his  attention  on  ceriain  points  in  them.  It  is  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  the  geometrician,  in  investigating  the 
relations  between  the  sides  and  angles  of  a  triangle, 
how  big,  or  of  what  colour,  or  of  what  material  the 
particular  triangle  is ;  it  may  be  of  great  interest  to 
some  one  else,  but  not  In  him  ;  yet  all  these  things  go 
to  make  up  the  '  visiMc  triangle.'  In  using  this  phrase 
and   contrasting    the   'visible    triangle'   with    an   ' intel- 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        251 

ligible  triangle,'  which  is  the  object  of  the  geometrician's 
study,  we  are  speaking  as  if  there  were  two  triangles, 
and  may  easily  be  led  to  think  of  the  '  intelligible  tri- 
angle '  as  if  it  were  another  triangle  which  is  a  faint 
image  of  the  sensible  one.  From  this  difficulty  of  lan- 
guage arises  the  greater  part  of  the  difficulty  of  Plato's 
idealism.  We  must,  therefore,  be  clear  what  we  mean 
when  we  speak  of  the  intelligible  triangle  ;  the  use  of 
the  phrase  does  not  imply  that  there  are  two  different 
classes  of  triangles,  the  intelligible  and  the  sensible  ;  it 
means  simply  that  there  is  in  the  sensible  triangle 
a  property  distinguishable  from  all  its  other  properties, 
which  makes  it  a  triangle.  The  sensible  triangle  is  the 
'  intelligible  triangle '  plus  certain  properties  other  than 
triangularity.  These  other  properties  the  geometrician 
leaves  out  of  account,  or,  in  Plato's  language,  regards 
as  merely  symbolic.  The  phrase,  which  is  familiar  to  us, 
that  science  abstracts,  expresses  just  what  Plato  means 
when  he  says  that  science  treats  particular  objects  as 
merely  symbolic,  symbolic  of  something  \vhich__they_a5  a 
whole  are  not.     All  science  does  this. 

We  may  put  this  in  a  different  way  so  as  to  illustrate 
its  bearing  upon  education.  The  study  of  the  sciences 
compels  us  to  think  ;  it  compels  us,  as  Plato  says,  to  let 
go  our  senses  and  trust  to  our  intellects.  In  Book  VII 
he  insists  upon  this  in  the  case  of  all  the  sciences  he 
mentions ;  we  have  in  each  to  set  aside  our  senses  and 
their  associations,  and  to  look  at  things  with  our  minds ; 
that  is  we  have  to  set  aside  all  but  that  particular  law 
or  principle  which  is  our  object  of  interest  for  the  time 
being.  That  is  why  science  seems  at  first  to  upset  all 
our  ordinary  associations  and  to  be  less  real  than  our 
ordinary  experience. 


252         LECTURES    ON    PLATo's    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

{b)  Plato  tells  us  further  that  bidvoia  reasons  from 
'  hypotheses.'  We  mean  by  a  hypothesis  a  theory  tem- 
porarily assumed  to  be  true,  which  we  are  prepared  to 
abandon  if  the  facts  do  not  agree  with  it ;  a  hypothetical 
view  would  mean  a  provisional  view,  awaiting  confirma- 
tion or  disproof.  But  the  use  of  the  word  vTrodecris  in 
Plato  and  Aristotle  is  different  from  this.  Plato  meant 
by  a  hypothesis  a  truth  which  is  assumed  to  be  ultimate 
or  primary  when  it  really  depends  upon  some  higher 
truth  ;  not  that  it  is  untrue  or  could  ever  be  proved  false, 
but  that  it  is  treated  for  the  present  as  self-conditioned. 
The  point  of  contact  between  Plato's  use  of  the  word 
and  ours  is  that,  in  both,  a  '  hypothesis '  is  regarded  as 
conditional  or  dependent  upon  something;  but  Plato's 
hypotheses  are  by  no  means  provisional  theories,  they 
are  the  truths  at  the  basis  of  all  the  sciences.  Arithmetic 
and  geometry  rest  upon  certain  assumptions  or  hypo- 
theses. The  ultimate  assumption  of  arithmetic  is 
number  with  its  primary  properties  of  odd  and  even. 
The  arithmetician  docs  not  expect  to  have  to  give 
an  account  of  this ;  if  any  one  denies  the  existence  of 
number,  the  possibility  of  his  studying  arithmetic  is  de- 
stroyed ;  but,  granted  number  as  a  starting-point  («pxv), 
the  arithmetician  reasons  from  it  connectedly  and  con- 
sistently, and  discovers  from  it  any  particular  arithmetical 
truth  he  wants.  So  with  the  geometrician  ;  what  he  takes 
as  his  starting-point  is  the  existence  of  geometrical  space 
with  a  few  of  its  most  elementary  properties.  If,  when 
he  brings  a  truth  back  to  his  postulates,  axioms  and 
definitions,  you  deny  them,  he  can  only  say  it  is  impos- 
sible to  argue  with  you  ;  it  is  not  his  business  as  a 
geometrician  to  prove  them.  In  the  same  way  the 
physicist    starts    with    the    conceptions   of    matter   and 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        253 

motion,  the  biologist  with  life,  the  economist  with  wealth, 
the  moralist  with  .morality.  These,  with  a  few  of  their 
most  elementary  forms  and  attributes,  are  the  hypotheses 
of  the  sciences  concerned  with  them,  and  each  science 
has  similarly  its  own  hypotheses. 

By  calling  such  conceptions  hypotheses,  in  the  sense 
that  they  depend  for  their  validity  on  some  other  truths, 
what  does  Plato  mean  ?  Not  that  they  are  untrue,  for 
he  speaks  of  them  as  a  form  of  '  being.'  They  are  hypo- 
theses because,  if  we  saw  things  wholly  and  as  they  are, 
we  should  see  that  being  is  one  whole  (a  koo-hos),  and  that, 
as  it  is  one  whole,  the  various  forms  or  kinds  of  it  must 
be  connected  ;  whereas  the  arithmetician  and  the  geome- 
trician treat  their  respective  forms  of  being  as  if  they 
were  perfectly  independent  ;  that  is,  they  assume  them 
without  giving  an  account  of  them.  The  truths  they 
start  from  await  the  confirmation  (/3e/3aia>o-iv)  of  being 
shown  to  be  elements  in  an  interconnected  whole1.  It 
is  thus  an  imperfection  of  hiuvoia  that  its  'starting-points' 
are  hypothetical,  that  they  are  not  seen  in  their  true 
or  full  connexions  ;  for  the  ideal  of  science  is  perfect 
connexion  and  perfect  explanation.  And  these  are  the 
same  thing.  As  long  as  you  can  ask  Why  ?  the  ideal 
of  knowledge  is  not  satisfied.  To  ask  Why  ?  is  the 
same  as  to  ask  What  is  this  dependent  on  ?  Perfect  know- 
ledge would  imply  seeing  everything  in  its  dependence 
on  an  unconditional  principle  (awuudeTos  apyj)).  The 
human  mind,  though  it  never  reaches  such  a  principle, 
is  always  demanding  it,  and,  so  long  as  it  falls  short 
of  it,  cannot  attain  the  ideal  of  knowledge.  This  points 
the  way  to  the  description  of  the  final  stage  of  intelli- 
gence, voTjcris  or  hrurrrifiri. 

1   See  531  D  sq.  and  533  B  sq. 


254  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

(4)  This,  as  Plato  describes  it,  is  a  pure  ideal  ;  to 
realize  it  is  not  within  the  scope  of  the  human  mind.  But 
it  expresses  his  idea  of  what  we  should  aim  at  and  what 
knowledge  tends  towards.  It  involves,  he  tells  us,  first, 
a  state  of  perfect  intelligence  with  no  element  of  sense 
in  it.  It  involves,  secondly,  the  absence  of  hypothesis ; 
the  various  principles  of  the  specific  sciences  would  be 
seen  not  as  hypotheses  but  as  they  really  are,  all  natur- 
ally following  from  the  fact  that  the  world  is  a  world 
of  reason,  each  being  a  step  to  the  one  above  it,  and 
so  leading  ultimately  to  the  unconditional  principle  on 
which  they  all  depend. 

(a)  The  statement  that  in  perfect  intelligence  there 
is  no.  element  of  sense  perception  (nothing  alcrdiiTov)  is 
difficult  to  understand.  Probably  we  may  explain  it  in 
the  following  way.  Take,  by  way  of  example,  any  object 
regarded  by  a  geometrician,  and  used  by  him  as  a  '  sym- 
bol,' say  a  triangle.  We  have  seen  that  the  real  object 
which  he  thinks  about  is  not  that  particular  triangle, 
but  the  triangle  as  such.  There  remains  therefore 
in  the  sensible  object  a  great  deal  which  is  no  object 
for  the  geometrician,  but  fal's  outside  his  intellectual 
vision.  It  is  to  him  of  the  utmost  importance  that  he 
should  ignore  it,  that  he  should  not  confuse  what  makes 
the  triangle  a  triangle  with  a  certain  size  or  colour. 
Otherwise,  having  seen  a  triangle  an  inch  high,  when 
he  came  to  sec  another  a  foot  high,  he  would  suppose 
the  properties  of  the  two  as  triangles  were  different. 
In  such  a  simple  case  no  educated  person  would  make 
such  a  mistake,  but  in  more  complicated  things  we  are 
always  making  it,  and  it  is  because  he  thinks  mathe- 
matics train  men  not  to  do  this  that  Plato  insists  on 
their  educational  value.      Every  political  economist  knows 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        255 

how  difficult  it  is,  even  with  the  best  intentions,  to 
disentangle  complex  phenomena  in  which  the  actions 
of  a  number  of  human  beings  are  involved  ;  and  in 
ordinary  life  we  are  continually  doing  what  Plato  calls 
mistaking  the  symbol  for  the  reality.  Now  the  other 
properties  of  the  triangular  object,  which  are  ignored  by 
the  geometrician,  may  of  course  themselves  be  made 
the  subjects  of  scientific  investigation.  The  student 
of  optics  may  investigate  its  colour,  some  one  else  its 
chemical  composition,  and  so  forth.  And  so  with  more 
complex  objects ;  every  single  property  of_any__Qbject 
has  what  Plato  calls  a  form  ;  as  there  is  a  triangle 
as  such,  or  a  form  of  triangularity,  so  there  is  colour 
as  such,  or  a  form  of  colour.  Every  particular  object 
is  the  meeting- point  of  innumerable  laws  of  nature, 
or,  as  Plato  says,  in  every  particular  object  many  forms 
communicate.  Suppose  then  that  different  men  of 
science  had  set  themselves  to  work  to  exhaust  all  the 
properties  of  an  object,  and  that  all  these  properties 
came  to  be  understood  as  well  as  the  triangularity  o£ 
a  triangle  is  understood  by  the  geometrician,  we  should 
regard  the  object  as  the  centre  in  which  a  number 
of  laws  of  nature,  or  what  Plato  would  call  forms, 
converged  ;  and,  if  an  object  ever  were  thoroughly 
understood,  that  would  mean  that  it  was  resolved  into 
forms  or  laws.  The  fact  would  have  become  a  very 
different  fact,  a  fact  which,  so  to  say,  had  a  great  deal 
more-init,  though  none  the  less  a  fact;  the.  object_as  it 
LsJx>-a«4g-norant  person  would  have  disappeared.  There- 
fore in_per£ect  knowledge  there  would  be  no  element 
of  sense  ;  not  that  anything  which  our  senses  tell  us 
would  be  lost  sight  of,  but  that  every  sensible  property 
of  the  object  would  be  seen  as  the  manifestation  of  some 


256         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

intelligible  form  ;  so  that  there,  would,  be  no  symbolic 
or  irrelevant  element  in  it,  and  it  would  have  become 
perfectly  intelligible.  As  the  geometrician  sees  the 
various  properties  of  a  triangle  and  fixes  his  eyes  on 
triangularity,  disregarding  everything  in  the  sensible 
properties  of  his  symbol  that  could  cause  him  illusion 
or  confusion,  so,  if  he  understood  the  whole  object 
perfectly,  he  would  see  all  its  properties  in  the  same  way. 
It  would  not  be  to  him  a. .confused  collection  of  pro- 
perties which  seem  to  be  constantly  changing  and 
constantly  contradicting  themselves,  but  a.meetingjx>int 
of  various  permanent  arjxL_imchanging  forms  or  prin- 
ciples. That  is  to  say,  it  would  take  its  place  in  an 
order  or  system  of  '  forms '  ;  it  would  be  seen  in  all 
the  relations  and  affinities  which  it  has.  This  is  an 
ideal ;  but  we  do  know  that  everything  has  relations  and 
affinities  with  everything  else  in  the  world,  and  the  only 
way  in  which  we  can  represent  to  ourselves  perfect 
intelligence  is  by  supposing  a  mind  to  which  all  the 
properties  of  everything,  all  its  relations  and  affinities 
with  other  things,  are  thus  perfectly  understood.  This 
remains  a  true  statement  of  the  ideal  of  our  intelligence, 
though  of  the  great  bulk  of  things  our  experience  must 
be  always  to  a  large  extent  '  sensible.' 

(/>)  In  perfect  intelligence  there  would  moreover  be 
no  hypothesis.  To  describe  how  the  world  would  pre- 
sent itself  to  a  perfect  intelligence,  Plato  uses  a  figure; 
it  would  present  itself  as  a  sort  of  scale  or  series  of  forms 
of  existence,  each  connected  with  the  one  above  it  and 
the  one  below  it,  and  the  whole  unified  by  one  uncon- 
ditioned principle,  the  good.  The  good  is  that  on  which 
the)'  all  depend,  and  that  which,  to  use  another  figure 
of  Plato's,  is  reflected  in  them  all;  or,  again,  the  position 


THE    FOUR    STAGES    OF    INTELLIGENCE        257 

and  function  of  each  in  the  world  are  determined  by  the 
supreme  purpose  of  the  world,  the  good.  To  a  perfect 
intelligence  it  would  be  possible  to  pass  up  and  down 
this  scale  of  forms  without  any  break,  so  that  from  any 
one  point  in  the  world  it  could  traverse  the  whole.  In 
proportion  as  we  do  understand  one  fragment  of  truth, 
one  subject,  we  find  it  possible  to  start  anywhere  and 
to  get  anywhere  in  it  and  in  the  subjects  most  closely 
connected  with  it ;  and  a  very  fair  test  of  how  far  one 
understands  a  thing  is  the  extent  to  which  one  can 
develop  any  given  point  in  it.  Such  a  state  of  mind 
in  its  perfection  would  be  votjo-ls  or  vovv  e'xeiv  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  words. 

And  here  Plato  introduces  a  new  term,  of  which  we 
shall  have  to  consider  the  meaning.  The  power  or  faculty, 
he  tells  us,  by  which  such  a  state  of  intelligence  could  be 
brought  about  is  that  of  dialectic  (to  SiaAeyeo-flcu,  elsewhere 
bia\eKTLKij).  This  term  he  eventually  uses  to  describe 
knowledge  as  it  would  be  if  perfect1;  and  the  passage 
in  which  he  then  introduces  it  throws  light  on  the  passage 
before  us.  Speaking  of  the  application  of  the  various 
specific  sciences  in  his  system  of  education,  he  says  that  if 
the  study  of  them  is  to  be  made  profitable  to  the  end  in 
view  we  must  try  to  see  their  relations  with  one  another. 
This  is  a  principle  to  be  borne  in  mind  throughout  the 
more  advanced  part  of  the  education  in  science  which  he 
proposes  ;  the  points  of  contact  between  the  sciences 
must  be  perpetually  brought  out.  The  test,  we  are  told 
later,  of  whether  a  man  has  the  dialectical  nature  is 
whether  he  is  avvoTTTLKos,  which  means  whether  he  has 
the  power  of  seeing  together  at  one  view  the  relationships 
(oixeiorr/res)   between   the   various   specific    branches    of 

1  531  D  sq. 

VOL.  11.  S 


258         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

knowledge 1.  Now  this  brings  out  strongly,  what  is 
hinted  at  in  the  passage  before  us,  that  progress  in 
knowledge  is  progress  in  the .  perception  of  the  unity 
of  knowledge.  A  man  who  has  a  gift  for  perceiving  this 
is  a  natural  dialectician,  and  dialectic  in  the  fullest  sense 
is  simply  what  knowledge  would  be  if  this  possibility 
of  seeing  the  affinities  and  communion  between  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  knowledge  (not,  of  course,  only  the 
particular  sciences  to  which  Plato  refers,  but  all  branches 
of  knowledge)  were  realized.  In  this  use  of  the  word 
dialectic  is  equivalent  to  perfect  knowledge.  Later  on 
we  shall  have  to  consider  this  conception  in  more  detail. 

1  537  c. 


XII.    EDUCATION    IN    SCIENCE    AND 
PHILOSOPHY 

[Republic,  VII.] 

i.  The  Existing  Want  of   Education. 

At  the  point  which  has  now  been  reached  in  the  VII.  514.V 
argument,  Socrates  says  that  he  will  describe  by  an  ° 52r  B" 
image  what  is  the  actual  condition  of  mankind  '  in  regard 
to  education  and  the  want  of  it.'  The  description  is 
given  in  the  passage  known  as  the  'Allegory  of  the  Cave.' 
To  see  the  place  which  this  passage  fills  in  the  argument, 
we  must  recall  the  course  of  the  discussion  in  Book  VI. 
It  had  been  shown  that  the  philosophic  nature  was  the 
gift  which  most  fitted  men  to  rule  human  society,  but  that 
there  were  inherent  in  it  certain  dangers  and  causes  of 
difficulty.  We  were  thence  led  to  consider  the  question 
how  this  nature  is  to  be  educated,  and  how  its  full  de- 
velopment can  be  secured,  so  that  it  may  really  prove  the 
saviour  of  society.  The  answer  was  that  the  knowledge 
which  would  satisfy  all  the  requirements  of  education  would 
be  the  knowledge  of  the  good  ;  the  relation  of  this  know- 
ledge to  the  rest  of  human  knowledge  was  pointed  out ; 
and  a  sketch  was  given  of  the  stages  of  the  advance  by 

S  2 


260         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

which  the  world  becomes  more  intelligible  and  the  mind 
more  intelligent.  Now  Plato  turns  round  and  asks  what 
is  man's  actual  position  in  this  scale  of  intelligence. 
He  is  here  no  longer  dealing  with  an  ideal  community, 
but  describing  as  they  are  the  facts  about  the  human 
race  ;  and  they  are  exactly  what  they  ought  not  to  be. 
So  far  from  progressing  from  darkness  to  light  through 
the  stages  which  have  just  been  described,  men,  as  he 
here  represents  them,  practically  remain  in  the  lowest 
stage  of  intelligence. 

We  need  only  notice  a  few  points  in  the  allegory 
(514  A  to  5uSb).  In  the  first  place  we  are  told  that  the 
state  of  the  human  race  at  large  is  one  of  elKaa-ia. 
Instead  of  passing  out  of  this  initial  stage  to  some  truer 
understanding  of  the  world,  most  people  abide  in  it  all 
their  lives.  If  any  man  rises  out  of  it,  it  is  not  by  his 
own  doing,  nor  is  his  liberation  due  to  any  method  of 
education  or  any  help  which  society  gives  him.  but  it 
comes  (jjuaei,  no  one  knows  how  (515  c).  The  prisoners 
see  only  shadows  and  hear  only  echoes  of  the  truth,  and 
each  is  tied  fast  to  his  own  shadowy  experience.  In 
other  words,  the  view  of  men  generally  with  regard  to 
themselves  and  the  world  around  them  is  a  view  distorted 
by  falsifying  media,  by  their  own  passions  and  pre- 
judices, and  by  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  other 
people  as  conveyed  to  them  by  language  and  rhetoric. 
And  there  is  no  advance  in  their  view,  they  are  perma- 
nently in  the  state  of  understanding  in  which  children 
are,  except  that  they  believe  in  the  truth  of  what  they 
see  and  hear  with  the  force  and  tenacity  of  grown  men. 
This  is  not  the  state  of  a  few  miserable  outcasts,  it  is  our 
own  state. 

In  the  second  place,  not  only  is  this  the  normal  condi- 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        261 

tion  of  men,  but  it  is  one  from  which  they  do  not  desire 
to  escape.  They  have  no  idea  of  anything  better  beyond 
it,  for  the  bonds  in  which  they  are  tied  keep  their  faces 
perpetually  turned  away  from  the  light,  and  there  is  no 
system  of  education  to  free  them  from  their  bonds. 
Moreover,  the  few  who  do  get  free  find  that  every  step 
in  their  progress  towards  true  knowledge  is  attended 
with  pain.  In  the  third  place,  if  here  and  there  a 
prisoner  from  the  cave  does  get  up  to  the  light,  and 
then,  being  filled  with  pity  for  the  other  prisoners,  returns 
to  tell  them  what  he  has  seen,  they  laugh  at  him  and 
perhaps  kill  him.  In  other  words,  instead  of  co-operating 
with  the  leading  minds  that  arise  in  its  midst,  society  is 
either  indifferent  or  actively  hostile  to  them. 

These  are  the  main  points  to  be  noticed  in  the  allegory. 
The  prisoner  set  free  from  the  cave  and  gradually  accus- 
tomed to  bear  the  strongest  light  passes  through  a  series 
of  stages  which  correspond  generally  to  that  which  was 
symbolized  by  the  divided  line  in  the  preceding  section 
of  the  argument.  The  stage  in  which  he  is  turned  round 
from  the  position  in  which  he  was  originally  bound  and 
made  to  face  the  light  is  that  in  which  a  man  is  forced 
to  face  the  real  world  and  see  things  as  they  are,  coming 
out  of  the  false  preconceptions  which  fancy  and  hearsay 
and  prejudice  have  made  for  him.  This  is  represented 
as  a  painful  process.  The  second  stage  is  that  in  which 
he  is  led  to  take  a  scientific  view  of  facts,  and  that  too  is 
represented  as  painful.  It  would  be  pressing  the  allegory 
too  closely  if  we  tried  to  find  definite  stages  in  education 
corresponding  to  the  steps  by  which  the  released  prisoner 
is  led  to  look  at  the  sun. 

Such  being  the  actual  facts  of  man's  condition,  the 
passage  (518  B  to  519  b)  which  immediately  follows  the 


262         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

allegory  draws  a  contrast  between  the  true  theory  of  edu- 
cation and  the  actually  prevailing  theory.  Education, 
we  are  told,  is  not  like  putting  sight  into  blind  eyes,  it  is 
like  turning  the  eye  to  the  light.  And  further,  it  is  as  if 
this  could  only  be  done  by  turning  the  whole  body 
round ;  education  means  not  merely  illuminating  the 
intellect,  but  turning  the  whole  soul  another  way.  For 
the  great  causes  of  the  blindness  of  the  mind  are  the 
appetites  and  pleasures  which  overpower  the  soul ; 
these  are  compared  to  leaden  weights  with  which  the 
soul  is  encumbered  at  birth,  and  which  must  be  cut 
away  before  it  can  lift  up  its  eyes  from  the  ground. 

Next  (519  C  to  521  b)  we  are  shown  what  ought 
to  be  the  relation  between  society  and  its  leading 
minds.  The  facts  that  have  been  described  make 
it  quite  natural  for  those  who  have  been  freed  and 
have  got  to  the  light  to  wish  to  stay  there  and  to 
stand  aloof  from  the  world  ;  for  they  owe  nothing 
to  society.  But  the  relation  between  society  and 
those  who  can  serve  it  in  any  way  ought  to  be  just 
the  opposite ;  it  ought  to  be  one  of  reciprocal  service 
between  society  and  its  members,  each  contributing 
to  the  other  something  that  the  other  wants.  And 
this  principle,  which  lias  already  been  applied  to  minor 
matters,  ought  a  fortiori  to  be  applied  to  the  relation 
of  society  to  great  minds.  They  should  be  made  to 
feel  that  they  are  not  sprung  from  their  own  roots,  but 
owe  their  nurture  to  society,  and  are  therefore  bound 
to  society.  In  a  state  which  does  give  philosophers 
the  nurture  which  they  need,  it  will  be  no  wrong  to 
them  to  tell  them  that  they  must  rule  and  take  an 
active  part  in  society.  They  will  do  it  willingly 
because  they  will   feel  that  it  is  a  duty  which  they  owe 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        263 

in  return  for  their  nurture  ;  and  they  will  govern  well 
because  they  will  feel  that  they  have  already  something 
better  than  any  of  the  rewards  which  generally  accrue  to 
office,  for  that  state  will  be  best  governed  whose  rulers 
rule,  not  from  any  wish  to  enrich  themselves,  but  simply 
from  a  sense  of  public  duty1. 

2.  Education  in  the  Sciences. 

The  question  which  has  now  to  be  dealt  with  is,  How  521  b  to 
are  we  to  escape  from  the  state  which  has  been  sym-  53 
bolized  by  the  position  of  the  prisoners  in  the  cave  ; 
how  are  those  who  are  to  rule  and  save  society  to  be 
brought  up  from  darkness  to  light  ?  In  the  first  place, 
What  are  they  to  be  taught?  Socrates  begins  by  re- 
viewing very  briefly  the  education  which  the  Guardians 
have  already  received.  They  have  been  trained  in  fxov- 
(tlkij  and  yvfivacTTiK-q ;  and  the  former  of  these  will  have 
produced  a  sort  of  harmony  and  rhythm  of  character, 
by  means  of  habituation,  for  the  soul  has  had  the  order 
and  beauty  of  the  world  put  before  it  in  such  a  way  that 
it  cannot  but  unconsciously  assimilate  them.  But  in  all 
this  there  was  no  learning  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word 
(ixdOrjixa).  What  then  are  the  studies  or  branches  of 
learning  (jua^/xara)  by  which  the  soul  is  to  be  led  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  good,  the  greatest  thing  to  be  learned 
(fx£yi(T7ov   \xa61nxa)  ? 

Here  (523  E  sqq.)   follows  the  important  passage  in 
which  Plato  points  out  that  the  sciences  are  the  proper 

1  Notice  also  (520  c)  that  the  philosopher  when  first  he  turns  back 
from  philosophy  to  the  life  of  the  world  sees  badly,  like  a  man  going 
back  from  the  light  into  the  darkness  of  the  cave ;  but  with  practice 
he  will  come  to  have  a  far  better  insight  than  others  in  practical  affairs, 
because  of  all  that  he  has  seen  in  the  clear  light.     (Cf.  VI.  484  E.) 


26-|    LECTURES  ON  PLATO'S  '  REPUBLIC  ' 

instruments  to  mediate  between  the  state  of  mind  which 
the  previous  education  of  the  rulers  has  produced  and 
the  perfect  intelligence  which  (as  far  as  may  be)  they 
must  possess.  In  this  passage  he  describes  the  begin- 
nings of  thinking  (vorjais),  showing  how  the  soul  passes 
from  sense-perception  (ato-O-qo-Ls),  and  such  certainty  as 
that  can  give  it,  to  thought.  There  are.  he  begins 
by  telling  us,  two  sorts  of  things  that  we  perceive 
by  the  senses.  The  first  are  objects  which  are  ade- 
quately apprehended  by  the  senses,  so  that  they  do 
not  provoke  thought.  For  instance,  as  he  says,  if 
we  see  three  fingers,  the  perception  which  we  get 
through  sight  raises,  as  a  rule,  no  further  question  ;  there 
is  nothing  in  this  mere  perception  to  impel  the  ordinary 
mind  to  ask  what  is  a  finger.  Such  perceptions  con- 
stitute the  state  of  mind  called  Trurnv.  Here  what  a  man 
knows  consists  of  a  number  of  separate  objects  (ttoWo. 
(Kaara),  and  up  to  a  certain  point  the  mind  rests  satisfied 
with  them,  and  is  not  anxious  to  find  out  any  connexion 
between  them.  But  at  a  certain  point  the  soul  becomes 
conscious  of  things  like  quantity,  and  such  qualities  as 
hardness,  softness,  &c.  The  separate  sensible  object 
{ai<r6r)Tov).  which  was  at  first  regarded  as  a  whole  thing, 
then  seems  to  break  up  into  a  number  of  attributes, 
and  these  arc  the  objects  th.it  provoke  thought.  For 
suppose  we  observe  the  size  of  the  three  fingers,  or  their 
hardness  or  softness,  or  their  colour,  these  arc  also  sen- 
sible things,  as  the  kind  of  objects  previously  mentioned 
are,  but  with  this  curious  difference,  that  sense  no  longer 
adequately  perceives  them  ;  the  attributes  have  no  fixity, 
and  pass  into  their  opposites  ;  we  find  the  same  finger  in 
different  relations  great  and  small,  hard  and  soft,  &c. 
It    is    the    sense    of    this    contradiction    which    sets    the 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        265 

mind  thinking  upon  the  question,  What  is  each  of  these 
qualities  which  the  senses  report?  If  each  of  them  is 
one  distinct  thing  it  cannot  also  be  its  opposite,  and 
when  we  see  each  of  them  thus  confused  with  its  oppo- 
site the  question  arises  what  hardness,  or  greatness,  or 
the  like  really  is.  So  we  are  brought  to  the  distinction 
between  the  object  of  thought  (vot]t6v)  and  the  object 
of  sight  (oparov),  or  of  the  senses  generally  (aladriTov). 
There  is  magnitude  as  seen  in  a  separate  visible  object 
in  this  confused  and  self-contradictory  way,  so  that 
a  thing  is  both  great  and  small  in  different  relations  ; 
and  there  is  '  the  great.'  '  the  small,'  which  is  apprehended 
by  thought  and  is  quite  clear  and  definite,  so  that  the 
great  is  never  small  and  the  small  never  great.  And 
thus  we  get  to  the  point  of  view  which  was  described 
as  that  of  btavoia.  in  which  the  objects  with  which  the 
mind  is  occupied  are  not  the  sensible  things  that  happen 
to  be  before  one,  but  the  various  intelligible  principles 
which  can  be  apprehended  through  the  objects  of  sense, 
magnitude,  weight,  and  the  like. 

What  is  here  said  about  the  objects  of  sense  corre- 
sponds exactly  to  what  was  said  in  Book  V.  479  about 
the  objects  of  opinion.  It  applies,  of  course,  not  only  to 
the  perceptions  of  simple  sight  or  sound  or  touch,  such 
as  are  here  instanced,  but  also  to  our  perceptions  of 
what  is  pleasant  or  painful,  good  or  bad,  and  the  like. 
The  passage  must  be  taken  as  an  attempt  to  describe 
the  way  in  which  the  soul  passes  from  a  state  of 
unreflecting  perception,  through  a  state  of  perplexity 
and  bewilderment  (cnropia),  into  a  state  of  more  or 
less  developed  intelligence.  Sometimes,  from  various 
causes,  the  mind  becomes  dissatisfied  with  the  con- 
dition of   mere   opinion   and   mere   feeling    in    which   it 


256         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

finds  itself.  It  is,  of  course,  generally  in  the  sphere  of 
morality  that  we  first  feel  keenly  how,  as  Plato  observes, 
the  objects  of  opinion  contradict  themselves.  Thus, 
further  on  \  he  describes  the  position  of  a  man  brought 
up  in  certain  beliefs  about  justice  and  honour,  to  whom 
the  questioning  spirit  comes,  asking  him,  What  is  justice, 
What  is  honour  ?  When  he  gives  the  answer  that  he  has 
been  taught,  reason  confutes  him  and  shows  him  that 
what  he  calls  just  may  also  be  unjust.  Then,  unless  he 
knows  how  to  deal  with  this  new  spirit  of  questioning, 
he  gets  to  think  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  justice 
or  honour,  and  the  commonness  of  this  result  is  one 
reason  of  the  general  discredit  of  philosophy.  Plato 
describes  this  in  order  to  show  the  necessity  of  that 
constancy  to  which  the  Guardians  were  trained  while 
still  in  the  state  of  mere  opinion,  a  constancy  which, 
in  spite  of  difficulties,  holds  fast  what  it  has  been  taught, 
till  further  knowledge  comes  to  take  its  place.  The 
bewilderment  which  he  thus  describes  as  arising  in 
regard  to  moral  ideas  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which 
has  been  shown  to  arise  with  regard  to  the  physical 
properties  of  sensible  objects.  It  is  to  meet  this  diffi- 
culty, in  the  minds  in  which  it  occurs,  that  the  sciences 
take  the  place  in  education  which  Plato  proceeds  to 
assign  to  them.  If  a  man  has  the  sort  of  mind  that 
is  going  to  think,  it  is  most  important  that  it  should 
be  trained  to  think  in  the  best  way  and  on  the  best 
method. 

What  has  just  been  said  of  the  tendency  of  certain 
kinds  of  sensible  objects  to  arouse  thought  has  now 
to  be  applied  to  the  problem  of  education  (524  I) 
to  531  D).     The  question  is  what  particular  studies  are, 

1  537  E  to  539  A. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        267 

from  the  nature  of  the  objects  that  they  deal  with,  suited 
to  provoke  and  stimulate  thought.  Take  first  the  object 
with  which  arithmetic  deals,  number.  We  find  that 
every  sensible  object  is  both  one  and  infinitely  many, 
like  a  chain  which  is  one  but  consists  of  many  links. 
Thus,  since  unity  and  multiplicity  co-exist  in  the  same 
thing,  to  sense  the  one  is  many  and  the  many  are  one.  Yet 
if  you  said  this  to  the  arithmetician  he  would  laugh 
at  you,  and  say  that  a  unit  is  always  a  unit,  and  can  be 
nothing  else.  Clearly  therefore  the  arithmetician  is  not 
thinking  of  a  sensible  unit  but  of  something  else.  The 
same  thing  is  shown  to  be  true  of  geometry,  astronomy, 
and  harmonics.  In  each  the  object  as  it  is  to  sense 
seems  to  contradict  itself,  and  the  object  as  it  is  to 
thought  is  distinct  and  self-consistent.  Thus  the  sciences 
by  compelling  the  mind  to  think,  that  is  to  disentangle 
and  see  through  the  confusion  and  contradiction  of  the 
senses,  are  or  ought  to  be  great  educational  instruments, 
in  fact  just  the  instruments  we  want  to  facilitate  the 
transition  of  the  soul  from  mere  perception  to  intel- 
ligence ;  and  it  is  with  this  end  constantly  in  view  that 
the  sciences  are  to  be  studied. 

Of  the  present  manner  in  which  the  sciences  are  pur- 
sued, Plato  speaks  in  a  very  depreciatory  way,  rebuking 
the  practice  of  studying  them  merely  for  what  we  should 
call  utilitarian  purposes.  He  does  not  say  that  these 
uses  of  the  sciences  are  not  extremely  valuable ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  insists  more  than  we  should  on  the  value 
of  geometry  for  a  man  who  is  going  to  be  a  soldier; 
he  wishes  that  such  men  should  cultivate  the  geometrical 
sense.  What  he  does  say  is,  in  effect,  simply  this : 
the  study  of  the  sciences,  if  it  be  confined  to  the  limited 
objects  of  trade,  finance,  the  arts,  and   so  forth,  is  not 


263         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

really  educational,  or  educational  only  in  an  infinitesimal 
degree  ;  and  so,  until  people  are  encouraged,  by  the  state 
or  otherwise,  to  a  further  study  of  the  sciences  than 
is  required  for  these  purposes,  the  standard  of  education 
will  be  very  low.  Useful  the  study  of  the  sciences  ought 
to  be;  but  useful  for  what?  Plato  is  a  thorough  utili- 
tarian ;  but,  he  says,  trade,  navigation,  and  the  like,  are 
not  the  end  of  life  ;  the  end  is  to  do  the  best  for  the  soul 
you  can,  to  make  the  best  man  you  can  ;  and  the  object 
you  have  in  view  will  make  a  great  difference  to  the 
spirit  in  which  you  learn. 

What,  according  to  him,  is  the  real  value  of  the  study 
of  the  sciences  ?  It  is  twofold.  Their  first  great  function 
is  to  teach  us  to  think.  Thinking  means  asking  questions 
which  difficulties  and  apparent  contradictions  in  our 
experience  force  upon  us.  Now  science  owes  its  origin 
to  the  fact  that  the  soul  has  found  such  difficulties  in 
its  sensible  experience,  and  has  felt  a  certain  necessity 
to  clear  them  up.  Science  is  the  result  of  thought 
exercised  on  sense.  If  men  never  felt  in  their  experience 
such  bewilderment  as  Plato  has  described,  or  were 
never  impelled  to  find  their  way  out  of  it,  the  spirit 
of  enquiry  which  creates  science  would  not  exist.  There 
could  not  be  a  science  of  arithmetic,  for  example,  till 
some  one  was  driven  to  form  a  clear  conception  of  unity 
as  apart  from  particular  single  objects  ;  and  there  can  be 
a  science  of  any  subject  only  so  far  as  the  subject-matter 
can  be  thus  clearly  and  separately  conceived.  All 
sciences  then  have  originated  in  difficulties  of  this  kind, 
and  result  in  the  solution  of  such  difficulties.  Naturally 
therefore  the  sciences  which  already  exist  form  the  best 
instruments  for  training  the  mind  to  think;  for  in  study- 
ing  them    each    man's    mind    is    led    to    do    over    again 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        269 

what  has  been  done  by  the  minds  that  have  made  them. 
They  are  embodied  bcavoia,  representing  the  results 
of  thinking.  If  you  want  to  learn  to  think,  study  the 
sciences  in  which  past  thought  is  embodied,  for  you 
cannot  do  so  without  being  compelled  to  think  yourself. 
That,  according  to  Plato,  is  the  first  great  function  of 
science  in  education. 

The  most  elementary  airopta  of  all  is  that  which 
concerns  the  one  and  the  many ;  therefore  Plato  puts  at 
the  bottom  the  science  of  number,  which  is  the  result  of 
thinking  upon  this  antithesis.  Next  to  arithmetic,  the 
study  of  number,  comes  plane  geometry,  the  study 
of  space  in  two  dimensions  ;  then  solid  geometry,  the 
study  of  space  in  three  dimensions ;  then  astronomy, 
the  study  of  solid  bodies  in  motion  ;  and,  lastly,  har- 
monics, the  study  of  the  motion  of  bodies  as  producing 
sound.  This  is  the  order  of  his  scientific  course.  Each 
step  adds  something  to  the  complexity  of  the  subject 
studied,  and  in  each  case  he  reiterates  that,  along  with 
simple  observation  by  the  senses,  the  mind  has  got  to 
be  used  on  the  subject. 

As  yet  we  have  only  seen  the  most  obvious  use  of 
the  sciences  in  education.  There  is  another,  to  Plato  in- 
separable from  the  first.  If  their  first  use  is  that  they 
train  the  mind  in  thinking  in  general,  the  second  is  that 
in  studying  them  the  mind  comes  gradually  to  under- 
stand certain  principles  or  forms  of  being  which  are  a 
first  step  towards  understanding  the  good,  the  principle 
which  governs  all  being.  It  is  puzzling  to  us  that  Plato 
should  speak  of  these  sciences  as  putting  the  mind  on  the 
track  of  the  good,  and  we  naturally  ask  what  the  study 
of  number,  or  of  space,  can  have  to  do  with  the  final 
cause   of  the   world.     The  answer  is  that  each  of  the 


2-o    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

sciences  deals  with  a  particular  branch,  kind,  or  form 
of  existence  ;  that  existence  is  one,  forming  a  koo-}j.os  ; 
and  that  the  ideal  of  knowledge  is  to  be  able  to  pass 
freely  from  any  one  point  in  the  system  of  existence  to 
any  other ;  so  that,  though  number,  space,  and  motion 
are  not  directly  manifestations  of  the  good,  and  the  very 
abstract  sciences  which  deal  with  them  have  no  moral 
influence  in  the  ordinary  sense,  yet,  as  everything  in  the 
world  is  ultimately  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  intelli- 
gence, even  in  these  abstract  sciences  we  are  really  on 
the  ladder  which  leads  up  to  the  good.  Let  us  translate 
this  into  modern  language,  such  as  many  modern  philo- 
sophers have  used :  The  study  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  begins  with  the  laws  of  number,  space,  and  motion, 
is  already  the  study,  though  in  a  very  elementary  form, 
of  the  reason  of  things  ;  nature  does  everywhere  reveal 
reason,  that  is  God,  so  that  all  the  laws  of  nature  are 
laws  of  God,  and  even  the  study  of  number  is  a  study  of 
the  laws  of  God. 

Education  in  the  sciences  has  then  in  Plato  this  double 
function  :  first,  it  is  a  sort  of  mental  gymnastic ;  and, 
secondly,  it  introduces  the  mind  to  positive  knowledge 
about  certain  elementary  forms  in  which  the  presence  of 
the  good  in  the  world  is  manifested.  It  is,  as  he  puts  it, 
the  '  prelude  '  to  the  study  of  '  dialectic  ' ;  in  it  we  hear 
the  beginning  of  that  great  music  of  the  world  which  the 
human  race  has  to  learn  (53]  n). 

In  Plato's  treatment  of  each  of  the  sciences  that  he 
mentions,  we  arc  struck  directly  by  the  strong  distinction 
that  he  draws  between  those  aspects  of  things  which  are 
sensibly  perceived  and  something  which  is  not  seen  or 
heard  but  thought  or  understood ;  and  we  observe  that 
he  treats  the  latter  as  more  real  than  the  former.     Our 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        271 

first  impulse  on  a  superficial  reading  of  the  Republic  is 
to  say  that  Plato  altogether  ignores  what  we  call  observa- 
tion and  experiment,  and  writes  as  if  we  could  construct 
laws  of  nature  simply  by  thinking  out  certain  axioms  to 
their  consequences.  We  think  so  because,  coming  to 
Plato  with  certain  expectations,  derived  from  what  we 
know  of  the  methods  of  modern  science,  and  with  a  certain 
modern  phraseology  in  our  minds,  we  apply  these  to  him. 
Really  he  says  nothing  which  has  not  been  practically 
confirmed  in  its  spirit  by  modern  science1. 

The  most  striking  examples  of  his  view  occur  in  his 
discussion  of  astronomy  and  harmonics,  for  we  are  apt  to 
accept  what  he  says  of  arithmetic  (524  D  to  526  c)  and 
geometry  (526  E  to  527  d).  No  one  denies  that  arithmetic 
is  concerned  with  the  nature  of  number  as  such.  If  we  said 
we  saw  or  touched  a  number,  we  should  know  we  were 
speaking  in  an  inaccurate  way  ;  when  we  use  counters  for 
numbers  we  recognize  that  the  visibility  and  tangibility  of 
the  objects  reckoned  with  are  accidental,  not  essential,  and 
that  these  objects  are  merely  symbolical  and  suggestive  of 
number  as  apprehensible  by  thought.  As  to  geometry, 
what  Plato  says  might  perhaps  be  disputed.  His  position 
simply  is  that  the  visible  and  tangible  triangle,  for 
example  the  diagram  on  paper,  is  not  the  real  object  of 
our  thought,  but  a  symbol  suggesting  the  real  object, 
triangularity,  which  is  not  seen  and  touched,  but  thought. 
This  position  can  not  be  disputed.  But  of  course  trian- 
gularity in  its  essence,  though  it  can  only  be  thought^  is 
still  the  result  of  thinking  about  what  we  can  sec  and 
touch.     On   this   ground   objection    might   be  taken    to 

1  Cf    Whewell's    Philosophy    of  Discovery,    especially    Appendix    B.  ' 
Remember,    however,    that   facts    and  theories   are   not  opposite   and 
mutually  exclusive  things,  as  Whewell  implies. 


272  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    <  REPUBLIC 

Plato's  antithesis  between  sensible  experience  and  thought. 
He  does  not,  however,  really  ignore  this  fact,  and,  if  we 
are  to  dispute  whether  the  language  which  he  uses  is 
justifiable,  the  whole  question  at  issue  will  really  be  what 
exactly  we  are  to  call  sensible  experience.  When,  how- 
ever, Plato  comes  to  astronomy  and  harmonics,  the  way 
in  which  he  writes  of  them  seems  strange  at  first.  He 
makes  Glaucon  say  that  astronomy  (527  D  to  530  c)  will 
have  a  grand  educational  influence,  because  it  compels 
us  to  direct  our  minds  upwards  ;  and  he  makes  Socrates 
laugh  at  him  for  supposing  that  star-gazing  can  enlighten 
the  soul.  He  proceeds  to  say  that  a  man  might  gaze  at 
the  stars  all  his  life  and  yet  find  out  nothing  of  their 
movements.  Now  he  does  not  say  that  the  truths  of 
astronomy  can  be  arrived  at  without  observing  the  stars  ; 
and  he  often  says  that  knowledge  can  only  be  arrived 
at  through  the  eyes  and  ears1.  The  question  here  is, 
Could  we  ever  get  at  the  truths  of  astronomy  by  simply 
looking?  Newton  would  never  have  thought  of  the 
law  of  gravitation  if  he  had  not  had  eyes,  but  if  we 
chose  to  say  therefore  that  Newton  saw  the  law  of 
gravitation  in  the  falling  apple  we  should  be  giving 
the  word  'see'  a  meaning  different  from  its  usual 
meaning,  and  to  be  consistent  we  ought  to  adopt  a  new 
phraseology  altogether. 

Plato  goes  on  to  distinguish  the  visible  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  from  their  true  motions,  but  he  docs  not 
mean  that  the  former  are,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  untrue 
or  unreal.  He  contrasts  apparent  motion  with  real 
motion,  as  we  do.  No  one  can  say  that  .simple  observation 
of  the  movements  of  the  sun  tells  us  the  truth  about  them, 

1  CI.  especially  1 Vitnaeus,  47  a  sq. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        273 

for  no  one  now  believes  that  it  moves  as  it  seems  to  do  ; 
and  yet  no  one  supposes  that  the  simple  observation  that 
the  sun  occupies  different  places  in  the  sky  at  different 
times  of  the  day  is  not  a  true  observation  ;  it  is  a  real 
fact,  it  is  what  we  see.  The  question  is  how  we  are  to 
interpret  this  fact.  This  interpretation  is  an  act  of 
thought ;  we  put  together  this  simple  observation  and 
many  others,  and  correct  one  appearance  by  another  until 
at  last  we  arrive  at  a  hypothesis  which  will  account  per- 
fectly for  them  all.  We  all  believe  that  the  truths  dis- 
covered by  Kepler  and  Newton  are  truer  than  the  casual 
notions  of  persons  ignorant  of  astronomy.  How  are  they 
truer  (for  in  one  sense  every  experience  we  have  is  equally 
a  fact  and  equally  real)  ?  What  is  the  difference  between 
one  fact  and  another?  The  most  real  facts  are  those 
which  contain  most,  the  widest  and  deepest ;  the  most 
superficial  facts,  mere  '  empirical '  facts,  are  those  which 
contain  least.  The  laws  of  motion  are  facts  ;  so  are  the 
things  that  I  myself  observe  in  the  sky.  The  difference 
between  these  facts  lies  in  the  amount  which  they  enable 
people  who  know  them  to  say.  My  fact  of  observation 
of  the  sun's  position  tells  me  very  little  about  the  sun  ; 
but  the  fact  of  observation  is  not  denied  or  ignored  by 
the  greatest  astronomer,  it  is  used  along  with  a  great 
deal  more.  There  is  no  hard-and-fast  line  between 
empirical  facts  and  ultimate  laws ;  a  fact  is  empirical 
so  far  as  it  is  isolated.  A  great  generalization,  such 
as  that  of  Newton,  is  a  stupendous  fact,  it  connects 
and  contains  innumerable  facts  ;  it  is  simply  a  very- 
large  fact.  What  Plato  says  then  is  that  the  apparent 
motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  are  to  be  used  as 
examples  (7rapa8eiyfxaTa)  or  symbols  which  suggest  to 
us  to  think  out  the  real  motions ;  not  that  they 
VOL.  II.  T 


274  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

are   unreal,   for   they   are   not   visions,   or   illusions,   or 
untrue  l. 

Harmonics  (530  C  to  531  c)  is  one  of  the  branches  of 
the  science  of  motion.  Plato  says  that  motion  has 
many  branches,  but  he  takes  only  two,  the  motion  of 
heavenly  bodies  which  are  seen  by  the  eye,  and  the 
motion  of  bodies  which  produce  sound  to  the  ear.  Here 
again  he  begins  by  laughing  at  those  professional 
musicians  who  think  that  the  science  of  sound  can  be 
discovered  by,  and  consists  in,  what  we  actually  hear, 
and  that  the  person  who  has  the  finest  ear  and  is  capable 
of  appreciating  the  smallest  intervals  knows  most  of  the 
laws  of  sound.  Next  he  criticizes  quite  a  different  class 
of  people,  the  Pythagorean  theorists.  The  great  dis- 
covery that  musical  intervals  are  mathematically  ex- 
pressible was  attributed  to  Pythagoras,  but  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  known  exactly  what  he  really  discovered, 
or  what  was  discovered  by  other  Greek  theorists  on 
music.  Plato  speaks  with  approval  of  the  Pythagoreans 
in  that  they  have  investigated  the  principles  of  harmony, 
but  he  also  criticizes  their  enquiries  as  superficial.  They 
have  confined  their  investigations  to  intervals  and  con- 
cords which  can  be  heard,  and  for  these  they  have  found 
numerical  expressions,  but  they  have  not  gone  on  '  to 
ask,  in  general,  what  are  harmonic  numbers,  and  what 
are  not,  and  what  is  the  reason  for  each  being  such.' 
He  means  that,  though  they  have  worked  out  the 
numerical  expression  of  the  ordinary  intervals  of  the 
scale,  they  have  not  raised  the  question  what  harmony 

1  In  the  passage  where  he  speaks  of  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that 
m<  n  Star-gazing  will  reveal  the  laws  of  the  stars,  Plato  is  very  likely 
thinking  of  Aristophanes,  Clouds,  171  sqq.,  where  Socrates  is  represented 
as  hoisted  up  in  a  basket  gazing  at  the  sky. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        275 

itself  is,  and  what  is  the  ultimate  law  which  explains 
why  sounds  harmonize  at  all.  This  is  a  question  that 
has  exercised  the  minds  of  some  of  the  greatest  thinkers. 
Here  again  Plato  does  not  say,  Music  is  trifling,  it  ought 
to  be  resolved  into  harmonics.  He  does  say,  If  youj 
think  that,  because  you  have  a  delicate  ear,  you  necessarily 
understand  the  science  of  sound,  you  are  very  much 
mistaken,  for  no  amount  of  listening  to  sounds  will  show 
you  the  principles  upon  which  the  musical  scale  is 
based. 

So  far,  we  may  say,  Plato  understands  the  real  prin- 
ciples upon  which  all  science  is  based  ;  his  language,  if 
pressed,  is  hardly  less  true  than  Mill's  in  speaking  of  the 
same  subject.  But  he  has  expressed  himself  at  least: 
in  a  dangerous  way  in  speaking  as  if  real  motion  were' 
another  kind  of  motion  from  that  which  we  see.  The 
laws  of  motion  are  the  truth  of  the  motion  we  see.  • 
A  person  who  fully  understood  the  laws  of  any  sensible 
phenomenon  would,  in  apprehending  the  phenomenon 
by  sense,  also  understand  it,  for  these  would  not  be  two 
separate  acts.  If  he  understood  all  the  laws  of  the 
phenomenon  there  would,  in  Plato's  language,  be  no 
sensible  (that  is,  merely  sensible)  element  in  his  appre- 
hension of  it,  for  whatever  he  saw,  heard,  or  touched, 
would  be  to  him  the  expression  of  laws  he  could  not 
see  or  hear  or  touch.  And  yet,  we  may  say,  his  thus 
understanding  the  phenomenon  which  he  had  first 
apprehended  by  sight  or  hearing  or  touch  would  mean 
that  he  would  know  that  if  he  put  himself  in  certain 
other  positions  he  would  have  certain  other  sensations 
of  sight  or  hearing  or  touch.  We  must  therefore,  in 
reading  Plato,  guard  against  that  sort  of  bastard  Plato- 
nism  which  resolves  experience    into   two   worlds,  the 

T  2 


276  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

sensible  and  the  intelligible  world,  of  which  the  in- 
telligible world,  if  you  ask  what  it  is,  can  only  be 
described  as  a  fainter  reproduction  of  the  sensible.  He 
certainly  often  gives  occasion  to  this  misunderstanding, 
but  he  does  not  himself  draw  a  sharp  line  between  the 
sensible  and  the  intellectual  ;  for  he  constantly  calls  the 
sensible  the  appearance  of,  the  image  of,  the  suggestion 
of,  what  is  intelligible  ;  the  one  is  essentially  related  to 
the  other.  What  he  does  is  to  realize  and  work  out 
powerfully  the  fact  on  which  all  science  and  philosophy 
is  really  based,  that  it  is  by  thought  and  not  by  simple 
sensations  (as  the  term  is  ordinarily  understood),  or  any 
amount  of  combinations  of  them,  that  truth  is  really  found, 
and  that  therefore  truth  is,  so  far,  an  intelligible,  not 
a  sensible,  thing  ;  it  is  an  interpretation  of  sense,  or,  as 
he  would  say,  sensible  experience  is  a  symbol  of  it  or  is 
a  reproduction  of  it,  or  participates  in  it. 

The  difficulty  in  appreciating  this  idea  is  to  know 
what  exactly  is  given  by  sense  and  what  is  arrived  at 
by  thinking.  Language  leads  us  to  believe  that  first 
there  are  certain  well-ascertained  facts  given  us  by 
observation,  and  that  then  we  theorize  on  those  facts1. 
But  really  there  is  one  continuous  process  of  ascertaining 
going  on  from  the  most  elementary  sensible  observation 
up  to  the  highest  generalizations  of  thought,  a  process 
jn  which,  in  one  meaning  of  the  words,  we  may  be  said 
to  get  away  from  sense,  but  in  which  all  the  time  the 
more  elementary  facts  are  not  done  away  with,  but  are 
explained  by  being  taken  gradually  into  wider  and  wider 
connexions.  As  Plato  says  that  what  is  sensibly  per- 
ceived is  the  symbol  of  the  intelligible  truth,  so  we 
might  say  that  we  do  not  sec  or  hear  the  laws  of  motion 

1  See  tli<-  work  of  Whewell,  already  referred  to. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        277 

or  sound,  but  that  what  we  see  and  hear  are  parts  of  the 
facts  which  those  laws  express.  The  progress  of  what 
he  calls  thought  or  intelligence  means  that  experience 
gets  more  and  more  clear  to  us  as  we  go  on,  the  world 
as  it  is  known  to  us  at  first  by  the  senses  being  very- 
confused.  We  may  represent  that  progress  to  ourselves 
by  comparing  the  sort  of  impression  which  we  get,  if 
we  have  no  musical  education,  on  first  hearing  a  chord 
struck,  with  what  we  experience  when,  by  practice  or 
otherwise,  we  have  come  to  hear  the  different  notes 
distinctly  and  to  know  the  intervals  between  them.  The 
difference  between  these  two  experiences,  carried  out 
further,  may  give  us  some  notion  of  that  process  of  clari- 
fying confused  things  which  Plato  calls  the  work  of 
thought. 

In  any  fuller  enquiry  into  the  relation  of  sense  and 
thought  everything  must  turn  on  these  questions  :  First, 
what  is  meant  by  '  sense '  ?  Secondly,  how  much  do  we 
really  experience  in  sensible  experience  ?  Thirdly,  what 
is  the  nature  of  the  change  that  takes  place  when  we 
come  to  understand  better  the  thing  we  have  expe- 
rienced ?  (Every  one  would  agree  in  the  one  point  of 
calling  this  change  a  process  in  which  thought  becomes 
clearer.) 

3.  Dialectic. 

The  system  of  education  in  the  sciences  is  a  prepara-  531  d  to 
tion  for  'dialectic'  (hLaXtnTocrj  or  to  bia\eyeo-6cu),  and  will  534E- 
be  of  use  so  far  as  it  enables  the  Guardians  to  become 
'  dialecticians '  (8taAe/crtKoi).  There  is  for  several  reasons 
a  difficulty  in  understanding  what  Plato  definitely  means 
when  he  talks  of  dialectic  in  the  Republic.  In  this, 
as  in  other  cases,  and    notably  in    that  of  the  doctrine 


278  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of  ideas,  he  takes  for  granted  a  great  deal  which  he 
has  developed  elsewhere,  so  that  here,  as  often,  what 
we  are  told  in  the  Republic  is  rather  an  indication  of 
his  meaning  than  an  actual  account  of  it.  Further,  he 
repeatedly  uses  the  word  to  describe  an  ideal  science, 
and,  as  to  what  that  would  be.  he  could  only  give  us 
a  general  idea — an  idea  the  filling  up  of  which  must 
be  left  to  one's  imagination  and  to  the  progress  of  the 
human  race.  Moreover,  the  word  is  used  in  the  Republic, 
as  elsewhere  in  Plato,  in  other  senses  besides  this. 

The  word  itself  means  originally  the  art  or  process 
of  discourse,  of  asking  questions  and  giving  answers ; 
it  is  equivalent  to  hihovai  ml  Se'xeo-0ai  koyov,  to  be  able  to 
give  an  account  of  a  thing  to  another  man,  and  to  get 
from  him  and  understand  his  account  of  a  thing.  This 
is  a  standing  phrase  in  Greek  for  reasoning,  and  hihovai 
koyov 1  is  to  give  an  exact  definition  of  the  thing  you  are 
speaking  of.  A  man  who  understands  a  thing  can  give 
an  account  of  it  to  others,  and  on  the  other  hand  you 
cannot  give  an  account  of  a  thing  unless  you  understand 
it.  The  faculty  of  doing  this  attracted  the  attention  of 
ordinary  people  in  Greece,  and  in  Aristotle  it  becomes 
a  large  part  of  the  subject  of  logic.  The  Topica  is  an 
elaborate  treatise  on  practical  logic  in  this  sense,  logic 
as  used  in  society  for  conversational  purposes,  in  the 
pursuit  of  science,  in  the  law  courts,  and  the  like.  But 
the  art  of  giving  an  account  of  what  you  yourself  think 
is  scarcely  more  important  than  the  art  of  extracting 
from  others  their  opinions  or  beliefs  {koyov  hi^eaOai  or 
Knyov  Xa\xftav(tv).  To  know  how  to  put  a  question  is 
just  as  hard  and  as  important  as  to  know  how  to  give 
an    answer   to   one;    and    a    process    analogous  to  that 

1   More  fully — \6fov  rfjs  ovaias. — 534  n. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        279 

of  questioning  others  goes  on  in  the  mind  of  the  single 
enquirer. 

In  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  Socrates  says  that  the 
word  bia\iye<r9at  came  from  the  practice  of  men  meeting 
together  to  deliberate,  Siakiyovres  Kara  ykvr\  ra  TTpdy/xaTo., 
'  laying  apart  the  things  they  discussed  according  to 
their  kinds ' ;  everybody,  he  says,  ought  to  practise  this 
and  fit  himself  for  it,  for  '  this  is  what  makes  men  the 
best  men,  and  leaders  of  men,  and  masters  of  discourse ' 
(apLo-Tovs  not  T)ye\AOviKuiTa.Tov$  kcu  StaAe/crtKCorarou?)  .  This 
is  the  germ  of  the  Platonic  dialectic.  We  must  re- 
member with  regard  to  Greek  logic  and  reasoning  that 
philosophy  in  Greece  had  its  being,  to  a  great  extent, 
in  oral  discussion.  The  Greeks  were  to  an  extraordinary 
degree  a  nation  of  talkers  ;  and  therefore  not  only  elo- 
quence, rhetoric,  and  poetry,  but  the  other  arts  of  words, 
logic  in  the  true  sense  and  in  the  sense  of  mere  dispu- 
tation, were  highly  developed  among  them.  Socrates 
himself  spent  his  life  in  talking,  and  that  fact  never  lost 
its  effect  on  Greek  philosophy.  In  Plato  we  get  what 
was  the  habit  of  Socrates'  life  formulated  as  a  method  of 
enquiry.  Plato  took  up  the  word  'dialectic,'  as  one 
might  the  word  '  logic,'  and  gave  it  a  meaning  which  it 
has  never  since  entirely  lost.  It  came  to  mean  with 
him,  first  and  most  commonly,  true  logical  method  in 
contrast  to  false  or  assumed  methods  ;  and,  secondly,  not 
the  method  of  knowledge  at  all,  but  completed  know- 
ledge, or  what  we  may  imagine  would  be  the  result  if  the 

1  Mem.  IV.  v.  11  and  12.  The  etymology  is  of  course  strained.  In 
the  same  passage  this  intellectual  capacity  of  distinguishing  has  a  moral 
side  as  well :  '  only  men  who  control  their  passions  can  see  what  is 
best  in  things,  and  distinguish  between  things  according  to  their  kinds 
in  thought  or  in  action;  and  only  they  can  choose  what  is  good  and 
refrain  from  what  is  bad.' 


280         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

true  method  had  been  carried  out  completely  through 
all  branches  of  knowledge. 

In  the  first  of  these  senses  the  word  has  passed  from 
meaning  simply  discourse  to  meaning  discourse  with  the 
object  of  attaining  the  truth,  and  this  discourse  may 
either  be  carried  on  by  words  between  two  persons  or  be 
a  'dialogue  silently  carried  on  by  the  soul  with  itself1.'  We 
may  ask  why  a  word  meaning  discourse  should  be  used 
to  signify  the  true  method  of  gaining  knowledge.  The 
fact  points  to  Plato's  conviction  that  the  only  way  to 
attain  truth  is  to  advance  step  by  step,  each  step  being 
made  our  own  before  we  go  on  to  the  next,  and  that  for 
this  purpose  the  process  of  questioning  and  answering 
is  the  natural  method.  Moreover,  his  conception  of 
questioning  and  answering  as  the  natural  way  of  eliciting 
truth  from,  and  putting  truth  into,  the  mind,  is  closely 
associated  with  his  idea  that  education  does  not  mean 
simply  putting  something  into  the  mind  as  if  it  were 
a  box,  but  is  a  turning  of  the  eye  of  the  soul  to  the 
light  2,  or  a  process  of  eliciting  from  the  soul  what  in 
a  sense  it  already  knows, — a  process  in  which  the  soul 
which  learns  must  itself  be  active.  Hence  the  constant 
contrast  in  Plato  between  the  continuous  speeches  of 
some  distinguished  teachers  of  his  time  and  the  conversa- 
tions of  Socrates  ;  he  has  a  strong  feeling  that  the  only 
true  way  of  communicating  knowledge  is  to  bring  two 
minds  into  contact.  Thus  in  the  Phaedrus*  Plato  tells 
us  how  inferior  written  truth  is  to  spoken  truth,  because 
a  book  cannot  answer  the  questions  which  arise  in  the 
reader's  mind.  The  same  principle  applies  to  the 
thinking  of  the  individual  mind  ;  if  we  arc  to  learn  we 

1  Sophist,  263  !•:.  '  518  c. 

3  275  c  sqq. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        281 

must  not  simply  put  the  facts  of  a  book  into  our  minds, 
we  must  question  and  answer  ourselves. 

Again,  dialectic,  the  true  logician's  reasoning,  is 
reasoning  which  is  in  conformity  with  facts.  It  is  often 
contrasted  with  reasoning  used  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  gaining  a  victory  in  argument  (epiori/cTj  or  avriXoyiKij l). 
The  characteristic  of  such  reasoning  is  that  it  reasons 
according  to  the  names  of  things.  Plato  has  already 
described  it,  in  a  passage  in  Book  V,  as  '  pursuing  merely 
verbal  oppositions2,'  and  as  thus  opposed  to  dialectic, 
which  follows  the  forms  of  the  things  in  question  (that  is, 
distinguishes  the  precise  facts  which  the  name  is  meant 
to  indicate  in  each  case  where  it  is  used).  Thus  in  the 
passage  referred  to,  where  Socrates  is  talking  of  com- 
munity of  pursuits  between  men  and  women,  the  objector 
is  made  to  argue  that  on  Socrates'  own  principle 
different  pursuits  must  be  assigned  to  different  natures. 
To  reason  thus,  Socrates  says,  is  only  to  wrangle ;  the 
person  who  argues  so  only  takes  the  words  '  different 
nature,'  '  different  pursuits,'  and  argues  from  the  one 
to  the  other,  without  enquiring  what  specific  forms  of 
difference  there  are  ;  that  is,  in  this  case,  what  is  the 
specific  form  of  difference  between  the  natures  of  men 
and  women,  and  to  what  specific  form  of  difference 
in  occupation  it  ought  to  lead.  In  what  he  says  of 
reasoning  Plato,  we  observe,  starts  with  the  conception 
of  certain  objective  differences  of  kind,  differences  which 
are  there  whether  we  recognize  them  or  not  ;  it  is  the 
function  of  true  reasoning  to  discover  and  follow  them. 

1  "S,o<f>iaTiK-q  again  is  reasoning  known  to  be  illegitimate  and  used 
designedly  with  the  object  of  blinding  another  person  for  one's  own 
advantage. 

2  454  A  "  Kar'  aiiTu  to  oVo/ta  SiuiKtiv  rod  \€xQivTOS  r^v  Ivavrioiatv" 


282         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

The  differences  embodied  in  ordinary  language,  the 
terms  of  which  form  a  sort  of  classification  of  things 
which  is  in  use  amongst  ordinary  men,  are  often  not  real, 
or  at  least  not  the  most  real  differences;  they  only  go 
a  little  way  in.  True  logic  is  therefore  a  perpetual 
antagonism  to,  and  criticism  of,  the  ordinary  use  of  words 
and  the  ordinary  manner  of  discussion  ;  it  is  the  knowing 
how  to  use  words  rightly,  that  is  how  to  use  them  so 
that  they  shall  conform  not  to  the  fancies  of  the  speaker, 
but  to  the  real  distinctions  of  things,  the  real  system  of 
the  world. 

Plato's  account  of  dialectic  as  a  method  depends  then 
upon  a  certain  view  of  the  constitution  of  the  world. 
Anybody's  conception  of  the  method  of  knowledge  must 
ultimately  be  determined  by  his  conception  of  the  form 
in  which  truth  exists ;  men  have  always  distinguished 
between  reasoning  which  touches  facts  and  reasoning 
which  docs  not.  And  so  Plato's  conception  of  method 
is  the  reflex  of  his  metaphysical  conception  of  the  nature 
of  things.  How  did  he  conceive  the  world  would  look 
to  us  if  we  understood  it  perfectly?  It  is  obvious  from 
many  of  the  dialogues  that  he  conceived  it  would  present 
the  form  of  an  articulated  whole,  what  we  should  prob- 
ably call  an  organism  or  whole  of  parts  in  which  each 
part  is  only  understood  by  reference  to  other  parts  and 
to  the  whole,  and  every  branch  of  which  exhibits  on 
a  small  scale  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  the 
whole.  Such  being  the  order  of  the  world,  we  must, 
as  the  PJiilcbusx  tells  us,  in  any  enquiry,  approach  tilings 
with  the  expectancy  of  finding  such  an  order.  The 
nature  of  reasoning,  as  Plato  conceives  it,  is  determined 
by  this  characteristic  of  the   material   it   deals  with  ;    it 

1    16  c  to  ii. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        283 

must  conform  itself  to  that  material.  So  in  the  Phae- 
dras 1  he  illustrates  the  nature  of  discourse  (Ao'yov)  by 
the  metaphor  of  a  body,  and  again  in  the  same  dialogue 
he  compares  the  bad  reasoner  to  the  bad  cook  who  cuts 
across  the  joints  instead  of  following  the  natural  articula- 
tion of  the  body.  Thus  the  idea  of  the  world  as  an 
organic  whole  gives  his  theory  of  knowledge  its  most 
prominent  characteristic  2. 

He  himself  expresses  his  leading  idea  by  saying  that 
all  knowledge  has  to  do  with  '  the  one  in  many '  and  '  the 
many  in  one.'  This  is  a  technical  expression  of  the  idea 
of  organism  ;  for  every  organism  is  one  in  many ;  each 
part  can  only  be  conceived  with  reference  to  the  whole ; 
the  whole  is  present  in  the  parts ;  to  understand  it  we 
must  give  attention  not  to  the  one  alone,  nor  to  the 
many  alone.  In  the  Pliilclmsz,  where  this  idea  is  most 
worked  out,  Plato  remarks  that  the  fundamental  fact 
from  which  dialectic  springs  is  the  co-existence  of  unity 
and  multiplicity  in  all  things.  Wherever  we  take  the 
world  it  is  a  one  in  many ;  wherever  there  is  something 
of  which  we  predicate  being,  we  always  find  that  more 
than  one  thing  may  be  predicated  of  it ;  and  everything 
either  is  a  particularized  form  of  some  generic  form, 
principle,  or  law,  or,  if  it  is  itself  an  abstract  principle  or 
property  of  things,  exists  in  a  great  many  different 
instances,  though  maintaining  its  unity  throughout  them. 
(We  have  already  met  with  this  conception  in  Book  V.) 
The  method  of  learning  about  things  must  therefore  be 
one  which  recognizes  this  fundamental  fact.  Accord- 
ingly dialectic,  in  the  sense  of  the  method  of  knowledge, 

1  264  c. 

2  Cf.  Phacdrus,  265  C  sqq..  273  D  sq.,  276  E  to  277  C. 

3  14  C  to  18  E. 


284         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    l  REPUBLIC  ' 

will  be  a  double  process  consisting  of  combination  and 
division  (avvaycoyri  and  biaipecns) l.  This  means  that,  as 
any  truth  will  always  be  found  to  be  a  one  in  many,  the 
way  to  realize  it  will  be  either,  starting  from  many 
instances  of  it,  to  arrive  gradually  at  the  unity  which 
pervades  them  all  (this  is  avvayooyr]),  or,  if  you  start  with 
the  one  principle  or  law,  to  see  how  it  can  be  divided  up 
into  its  many  instances  (this  is  hiaipeais). 

Under  this  simple  form  we  recognize  what,  from 
Plato's  time  onward,  have  been  held  to  be  the  two 
sides  of  all  scientific  method.  In  '  inductive '  reasoning 
you  start  with  a  number  of  different  instances  and  en- 
deavour to  find  one  constant  principle,  the  '  law '  of  them  ; 
this  answers  in  principle  to  '  combination.'  In  '  deductive  ' 
reasoning  you  start  with  a  given  conception  or  fact  and 
follow  it  out  in  its  particular  applications  or  occurrences, 
seeing  how  the  general  principle  applies  to  a  new  case, 
or,  in  Plato's  phrase,  how  '  the  one '  particularizes  itself 
in  'the  many';  this  answers  in  principle  to  'division; 
In  'combination'  we  have  the  exercise  of  the  same  gift 
that  we  have  already  seen  referred  to  as  '  seeing  together ' 
(crvvotyis)  2.  Atatpecrts,  though  the  word  itself  is  not  used 
in  the  Republic,  is  the  method  that  the  true  reasoner  was 
said  to  follow  in  Book  V  in  the  passage  already  referred 
to,  where  the  failure  of  the  contentious  reasoner  is  said 
to  be  failure  to  distinguish  properly  the  different  kinds 
of  the  same  thing.  'Combination'  is  shown  primarily 
in  collecting  the  'form'  out  of  the  many  objects  of 
sense,  and  '  division  '  in  seeing  how  the  '  form '  appears 
in  a  number  of  different  objects  of  sense.     For  the  many 

1  Phacdrus,  266  B. 

1  In  the  Phacdrus  (265  I)     Plato  uses  avvopav,  to  sec  together,  as  an 
equivalent  to  ovvaytiv,  to  bring  together. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        285 

(~oAAa  ocaoTa),  the  multitude  of  particular  instances  of 
the  one,  mean  in  the  first  instance  the  objects  which 
the  senses  present  to  us.  And  forms  are  primarily 
spoken  of  as  elements  of  unity  in  a  multiplicity  of 
sensible  things.  But  it  is  important  not  to  overlook 
the  further  application  of  the  same  principle  which 
is  implied  in  the  Republic  ;  each  form  is  itself  related  to 
other  forms,  and  ultimately  all  the  forms  of  things  are 
connected  together  and  make  one  system. 

Thus  when  Plato  describes  the  perfect  reasoner  as  one 
who,  starting  from  any  single  form,  could  pass  up  along 
the  ladder  of  forms  to  the  ultimate  unconditional  prin- 
ciple on  which  all  depends,  and  could  descend  in  like 
manner,  the  ideal  of  science  which  he  describes  is  simply 
the  result  of  his  conception  of  logical  method.  True 
reasoning,  in  all  cases,  consists  in  the  union  of  combina- 
tion and  division ;  and  to  do  both  completely,  to  see 
the  many  in  their  unity  and  the  one  in  its  multiplicity 
completely,  would  be  to  have  a  perfect  knowledge  about 
the  world.  All  wrong  reasoning  is  the  failure  to  do 
either  the  one  or  the  other.  Plato  tells  us  in  the  Philebus 
that  most  people  either  pass  too  hastily  from  unity  to 
variety,  that  is  from  a  general  principle  to  a  particular 
case,  or  generalize  too  hastily  from  a  number  of  instances 
to  one  principle. 

This  logical  method  may  be  variously  applied  to  the 
discovery,  the  communication,  or  the  definition  of  truth 
(evptV/cet^,  hibdo-Keiv,  bpi^iv)  ;  and  these  are  the  three 
main  applications  of  it  that  we  find  considered  in  Plato  K 
In  the  attempt  to  discover  truth,  the  expectation  as  to 
the  truth  with  which  the  enquirer  starts  makes  a  great 
difference,  and  the  main  point  for  him  to  bear  in  mind  as 

1  For  its  application  to  teaching  cf.  PhaeJrus,  276  B  sq. 


286  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

to  the  method  of  discovery  is  that  he  must  never  be 
satisfied  with  what  he  thinks  he  has  discovered  until  he 
has  shown  all  the  differentiations  of  the  single  form  or 
principle  which  he  thinks  he  sees  exemplified  in  the  case 
before  him,  nor  until  he  has  brought  all  the  particular 
instances  of  it  into  unity  \  The  power  of  denning  things 
(Xoyov  kKacTTov  Xanfiaveu'  rr/i  ovarias)  is  made  a  prominent 
characteristic  of  the  dialectician  in  the  Republic.  Defini- 
tion plays  an  enormous  part  in  Greek  philosophy  ;  to 
be  able  to  define  things  was  its  ideal.  How  then  does 
definition  connect  with  this  conception  of  method  ? 
Anything  we  wish  to  define  will  necessarily  be  found 
to  be  a  certain  specific  form  of  one  or  more  generic  forms 
or  principles.  To  be  able  to  define  it,  that  is  to  have 
an  accurate  conception  of  it,  is  to  be  able  to  see  exactly 
what  modification  it  is  of  what  form  or  forms.  Merely 
to  know  that  a  certain  act,  for  example,  is  a  good  act, 
is  not  to  have  a  definite  conception  of  it ;  to  have  an 
adequate  conception  of  a  good  act  we  must  sec  exactly 
in  what  sense  it  is  good,  or  how,  in  the  particular  circum- 
stances of  the  act.  good  is  best  realized.  We  might  say 
that  definition  consists  in  assigning  to  the  particular 
its  position  in  reference  to  the  principle  of  which  it  is 
an  instance.  Dialectic,  Plato  tells  us  in  the  Republic 2, 
is  the  method,  and  the  only  method,  which  attempts 
systematically  to  arrive  at  the  definition  of  any  given 
thing.  The  process  of  defining  a  given  thing  is  there 
(implicitly)  represented  as  consisting  in  taking  it  away 
from,  and  holding  it  apart  from,  every  other  thing  with 
which  it  is  combined  or  to  which  it  is  akin  :i.  But  this 
process  of  abstraction  is  only  the  other  side  of  the  process 
of  concretion,  which  sees  in  what  ways  a  given  form  or 
1  Philebus,  c6d.  2  5331'.  3  534  «  sq. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        287 

principle  is  in  fact  combined  with  others.  We  are  some- 
times told  that  modern  science  aims  at  the  classification, 
or  again  at  the  explanation,  of  things,  whereas  the  Greeks 
aimed  only  at  defining  them.  But  to  explain  anything, 
or  to  classify  anything,  is  to  assign  it  its  place  in  the 
scheme  of  knowledge,  and  to  define  it  is  the  same. 

In  the  latter  part  of  Book  VII,  in  a  passage  already 
referred  to,  Plato  dwells  on  the  dangers  of  dialectic.  He 
describes  in  a  graphic  way  the  effect  produced  on  the 
mind  in  youth  by  the  first  taste  of  logic,  which  is  that 
the  young  man  goes  about  proving  that  every  thing 
is  something  else.  Plato  connects  these  first  beginnings 
of  thinking,  which  are  the  beginnings  of  dialectic,  with 
the  first  perception  of  the  curious  fact  of  the  co-existence 
of  one  and  many.  This  is  to  him  the  natural  way  to 
describe  the  awakening  of  speculative  thought.  We  have 
already  seen  that  he  describes  thought 1  as  beginning  with 
the  perception  that  the  same  thing  is  not  the  same,  or 
that  one  is  also  many.  All  through  Plato  we  find  that 
this  old  logical  problem  is  that  around  which  all  his 
conceptions  of  method  hang.  It  was  the  first  form  in 
which  any  metaphysical  question  forced  itself  on  the 
human  mind  2. 

We  may  now  pass  to  dialectic  as  completed  science. 
This  is  a  sense  of  the  word  which  is  more  prominent  in 
the  Republic  than  in  other  dialogues.  The  conception 
has  already  been  discussed  in  reference  to  the  passage 
at  the  end  of  Book  VI,  where  Plato  defines  vorjais3,  or 
thought  in  the  fullest  sense,  as  distinguished  from  hidvoia. 
Dialectic,  as  completed  science,  is  the  result  which  would 
be   obtained   by  the    method  we   have   been   speaking 

1  votjois  in  the  wider  sense  as  opposed  to  diavoia. 

2  Cf.  Philcbus,  15  D  sq.  3  vurjafi  as  opposed  to  Siavoia. 


288         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

of,  if  it  could  be  fully  carried  out.  We  often  hear 
method  and  result  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  two 
mutually  exclusive  conceptions.  Is  philosophy,  we 
are  asked,  a  method  or  a  result  ?  It  is  a  result,  for 
as  we  advance  in  philosophy  we  are  conscious  of 
attaining  something.  But  at  the  same  time  we  are 
compelled  to  say  that  no  result  in  knowledge  is  final, 
and  therefore  knowledge  is  a  perpetual  method  ;  and 
we  may  add  that  the  methods  of  knowledge  change 
and  are  modified  by  every  fresh  step  in  knowledge. 
Between  Plato's  conception  of  perfect  knowledge  and 
his  conception  of  the  method  of  attaining  to  know- 
ledge there  is  a  very  obvious  correspondence.  Perfect 
knowledge  would  be  a  state  of  mind  to  which  all  things 
presented  themselves  as  a  perfectly  connected  order — 
an  order  in  which  every  part  down  to  the  smallest 
detail  had  its  proper  place,  and  was  seen  by  the  mind 
to  be  eventually  connected  with  every  other  part  and 
with  the  principle  which  makes  them  all  one.  Now 
dialectical  method  applied  to  the  discovery  of  truth 
means  coming  more  and  more  to  see  not  only  that 
things  are  one  in  many,  but  how  they  are  so ;  the 
dialectical  view  of  things  is  that  which  studies  them 
with  a  constant  regard  to  their  mutual  relations1. 
Let  us  suppose  a  method  like  this  worked  out  to  its 
completion,  and  we  get  dialectic  in  its  sense  of  com- 
pleted knowledge.  This  of  course  would  not  be  brought 
about  merely  by  what  we  call  a  logical  process  in  the 
ordinal}'  sense  ;  it  would  only  be  possible  if  the  whole 
world  of  facts  lay  open  to  our  observation.     Dialectic 

1  Sophist,  253  it  sf|.,  may  be  referred  to,  together  with  the  passages 
already  referred  to  in  the  Pkilgbus  and  the  Phaedrus,  as  throwing 
light  on  Plato's  practical  conception  of  dialectic. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        1S9 

therefore  is  not  a  branch  of  science  existing  alongside 
other  sciences.  The  word  may  be  used  either  of  a  uni- 
versal method  to  be  applied,  differently  in  different  cases, 
to  all  the  questions  with  which  human  thought  is  con- 
cerned, or  of  an  ideal  science  which  is  the  system  of 
all  the  sciences,  an  ideal  which  can  only  be  realized 
to  a  slight  extent,  but  which  nevertheless  describes  the 
end  towards  which  the  progress  of  human  knowledge 
works  * 


4.  Plan  of  the  Whole  Course  of  Education. 

We  have  described  the  studies  which  the  Guardians  535  a  to 

end  of  VII. 

must  go  through,  and  it  remains  to  say  what  place  they 
are  to  take  in  the  course  of  the  Guardians'  lives,  and 
who  are  to  be  chosen  to  enter  upon  each  successive 
stage  of  study.  Plato  begins  by  enforcing  again  the 
necessity  of  choosing,  to  be  rulers,  men  who  combine 
the  two  complementary  qualities  of  constancy  and  of 
intellectual  quickness  (/3e/3atoVrj?  and  S/h/avttjs),  telling  us 
that  hard  intellectual  work,  such  as  they  will  have  to 
undergo,  will  require  of  them  more  courage  even  than 
hard  physical  exertion.  He  dwells  upon  the  evils 
which  result  from  choosing  what  he  calls  '  cripples ' 
to  be  leaders  in  the  state.  By  a  '  cripple '  he  means 
a   person    who    is    one-sided,  or   not   developed   on   all 

1  [The  concluding  sentences  of  the  discussion  of  dialectic  may  here  be 
noticed.  Having  hitherto  spoken  of  it  in  language  which  suggests  that 
he  is  occupied  only  with  a  remote  ideal,  Plato  suddenly  changes  his  tone 
and  makes  Socrates  appeal  to  Glaucon  to  educate  his  sons  as  dialecti- 
cians. They  are  to  be  educated  in  dialectic  because  they  may  be  called 
upon  to  deal  with  important  public  affairs  ;  and  dialectic  is  described 
simply  as  the  art  of  '  asking  and  answering  questions  most  intelligently 
or  scientifically.' — Ed.] 

VOL.  II.  U 


25o    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  l  REPUBLIC 

sides  of  his  nature.  One  form  of  this  one-sidedness 
is  to  like  athletic  exertion  but  hate  intellectual  toil ; 
another  is  the  reverse  of  this.  Yet  another  such  defect 
of  nature  is  insufficient  care  for  truth  ;  it  is  not  enough — 
to  put  what  Plato  says  in  modern  language— to  have 
what  is  ordinarily  called  a  truthful  nature,  a  man  must 
have  that  love  of  truth  which  makes  him  not  only  hate 
to  tell  a  lie,  but  hate  to  be  the  victim  of  false  ideas1. 
These  and  other  requirements  Plato  sums  up  by  saying 
that  the  Guardians  must  at  the  outset  be  sound  in  limb 
and  sound  in  mind.  He  concludes  with  a  characteristic 
apology  for  the  earnestness  with  which  he  is  speaking. 

Those  who  are  to  go  through  the  advanced  course  of 
study  that  has  now  been  proposed  must  begin  their  training 
young,  and  even  their  first  studies  are  to  be  as  little 
compulsory  as  possible.  Up  to  the  age  of  about  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  the  education  of  juoim/o/  described  in 
the  earlier  books  will  go  on  ;  and  in  addition  the  ele- 
ments of  the  sciences  will  be  learnt,  but  without  system 
{\6hr\v).  After  this  will  come  a  course  of  exclusively 
'gymnastic'  training,  lasting  till  the  age  of  twenty. 
This  means  a  systematic  bodily  training,  including 
military  exercises,  and  directed  towards  preparing  the 
young  men  for  the  service  of  the  state  in  keeping  order 
at  home  and  in  fighting  against  foreign  enemies.  It 
serves  the  further  purpose  of  giving  them  a  good  foun- 
dation of  bodily  health  for  their  future  work,  and  of 
training  them  in  courage  and  self-control.  It  will  be 
so  hard  that  they  cannot  at  this  period  do  any  intel- 
lectual work  ;  but,  says  Plato,  what  a  man  shows  himself 
to  be  at  his  gymnastics  will  be  a  very  good  test  of  his 
general    character.      At   the   age    of  twenty,   a    further 

1  Cf.  382  A  sq.  and  412  B  sq. 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        291 

selection  will  be  made  of  those  who  have  distinguished 
themselves  most,  and  these  will  be  advanced  to  the 
next  stage  of  education.  This  will  consist  of  two  parts. 
There  will  be  a  systematic  scientific  course  continuing  to 
the  age  of  thirty  ;  and,  while  they  are  occupied  in  this, 
the  great  point  to  be  attended  to  will  be  whether  they 
show  the  faculty  for  dialectic,  the  power  of  'seeing  things 
together'  (avi>o\}ns).  But  alongside  of  this  a  training  in 
the  public  service,  chiefly  military,  will  be  going  on ;  and 
here  the  chief  test  to  be  applied  to  a  man  is  whether  he 
is  steadfast  (ixoviiios)  and  shows  constancy  to  the  principles 
he  has  been  taught.  At  the  age  of  thirty,  a  further 
selection  will  be  made.  Those  who  are  now  approved 
will  enter  upon  the  study  of  dialectic  proper,  which  will 
continue  for  five  years,  unaccompanied  by  any  other 
work.  (Probably  this  is  meant  to  include  a  study  of  the 
principles  of  morality  and  human  life ;  for  it  is  in  this 
connexion  that  Plato  describes  the  dangers  of  dialectic 
for  those  who  are  not  fitted  for  it  by  the  tenacity  with 
which  they  hold  fast  to  the  principles  of  right  that  they 
have  been  taught 1.)  At  thirty-five  begins  the  really 
serious  work  of  the  public  service,  and  it  lasts  for  fifteen 
years.  During  these  years  the  Guardians  will  be  ac- 
quiring the  experience  (e/i7rei/na)  necessary  for  rulers  by 
actual  contact  with  the  various  forms  of  good  and  evil 
about  which  they  have  been  taught ;  and  all  the  while 
they  will  be  continually  tested  to  see  if  they  stand 
being  '  pulled  about  in  all  directions '  by  the  circum- 
stances with  which  they  have  to  contend.  From  fifty 
onwards,  those  who  are  still  approved  are,  alternately, 
to  study  the  good  itself,  and  in  the  light  of  it  to  govern 
and    organize   the   state.     They    will    be   the   supreme 

1  Cf.  Phaedo,  90  B  and  C. 
U  % 


29^  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC' 

council  in  the  state,  dividing  their  time  between  theo- 
retical study  of  the  good,  and  practical  government. 
Finally,  when  they  die,  they  will  be  buried  with  public 
honours,  and  worshipped,  if  the  Delphic  oracle  allows, 
as  divine  beings  (bai/jLoves),  or  at  any  rate  as  blessed  and 
favoured  by  the  gods  (evbaCnoves). 

The  actual  machinery  of  this  scheme  is  the  least 
important  part  of  it,  nor  is  it  of  any  use  to  enquire 
whether  it  is  practicable,  for  Plato  himself  only  professes 
to  be  describing  an  ideal  state.  The  question  is,  What 
substantial  truth  is  there  in  it  for  mankind,  and  in  what 
sort  of  way  could  we  appropriate  Plato's  principles? 
There  are  three  important  ideas  in  his  system  of  edu- 
cation. First,  there  is  the  idea  that  education  must 
meet  all  the  demands  that  human  nature  brings  with  it. 
Secondly,  there  is  the  conception  that  as  long  as  the  human 
soul  is  capable  of  growth  the  work  of  education  ought  to 
go  on.  Education  should  be  co-extensive  with  life,  for 
education  simply  means  keeping  the  soul  alive  ;  it  is 
only  by  a  concession  to  human  nature's  weakness  that  it 
is  supposed  to  be  restricted  to  the  first  twenty-five  years 
of  one's  life.  Thirdly,  the  great  organs  of  education  are 
all  those  things  which  human  nature  in  the  course  of  its 
growth  has  produced  ;  religion,  art,  science,  philosophy, 
and  the  institutions  of  government  and  society  are  all  to 
be  enlisted  in  the  service  of  education.  Here  we  see  how 
utterly  remote  from  Plato  is  the  idea  that  there  can  be 
any  contest  between  art  and  science,  between  study  and 
practical  life,  or  between  any  of  the  great  products  of  the 
human  mind  ;  he  uses  all  as  links  in  one  chain. 

Though  Plato  spends  so  much  time  in  the  Republic 
upon  the  higher  branches  of  education,  he  is  really  con- 
templating them  as  intended  only  for  a  very  few  men  ;  he 


EDUCATION  IN  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY        293 

thinks  that  the  bulk  of  those  who  are  educated  would 
stop  their  education  about  the  same  time  as  we  do  now. 
It  is  only  the  small  number  who  ultimately  rule  the 
state  who  go  through  the  complete  course.  No  one  can 
doubt  that,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  something  in  his 
spirit  for  the  training  of  the  most  influential  people  in  the 
state,  modern  government  would  be  considerably  better 
than  it  is,  for,  if  the  function  of  government  is  the  hardest 
and  highest  of  all,  it  clearly  requires  the  best  training 
and  the  best  instruments. 


XIII. 

SUCCESSIVE    STAGES    OF    DECLINE 
OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL 

[Republic,  VIII  and  IX  to  576  B.] 

We  may  say  that  Books  II  to  VII  of  the  Republic 
put  before  us  a  logical  picture  of  the  rise  of  the  human 
soul  to  what  Plato  conceived  to  be  its  highest  capa- 
bilities, while  Books  VIII  and  IX  give  a  similar  picture 
of  the  fall  of  the  human  soul  to  what  seemed  to  him  the 
lowest  point  consistent  with  its  remaining  human  at  all. 
The  first  of  these  pictures  shows  us  how  man  may 
rise  to  a  level  where  he  is  very  closely  akin  to  the  divine 
nature,  the  second  shows  us  how  he  may  fall  to  a  point 
where  he  is  almost  on  a  level  with  the  brute.  We  called 
the  first  a  logical  picture  because  Plato,  in  describing 
a  perfect  state,  or  certain  stages  in  the  process  of  form- 
ing a  perfect  state,  writes  throughout  as  if  one  stage  of 
that  process  succeeded  another   in  a  historical  order ]  ; 

1  [The  first  stape  is  the  ivayfcaiorirrj7r6\is,i.e.  the  state  containing  the 
barest  essentials  of  a  healthy  state,  described  in  II.  369  H  to  372  K.  The 
second  is  that  described  from  372  E  to  the  end  of  IV.  The  third,  that  of 
V  to  VII,  which  lie  speaks  of  (in  543  I))  as  a  state  distinct  from  and 
better  than  that  of  II  to  IV.  —Ed  ] 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       295 

whereas  we  know  all  the  time  that  the  process  is  abso- 
lutely unhistorical,  and  that  he  does  not  mean  that  any- 
state  has  grown  up  in  this  way.  The  real  order  of  the 
development  he  describes  is  a  purely  logical  order,  based 
on  his  psychological  analysis  of  the  main  elements  in 
a  perfectly  developed  society.  The  appearance  of  his- 
torical order  is  still  more  striking  in  Books  VIII  and  IX, 
in  which  the  picturesque  element  is  so  much  more  pro- 
minent that  some  commentators  have  taken  Plato  to  be 
describing  the  actual  evolution  of  Greek  political  society, 
and  have  criticized  him  seriously  upon  that  ground, 
pointing  out  that  the  various  forms  of  government  he 
speaks  of  did  not  occur  in  the  order  he  describes l. 
Nothing  is  easier  than  to  show  this,  but  it  is  quite 
inconceivable  that  Plato  should  have  been  ignorant  of 
such  elementary  facts.  If  we  look  closer  we  see  that 
here  too  the  order  of  arrangement  is  logical  and  psycho- 
logical. The  question  he  puts  before  himself  is  this  : 
The  human  soul  being  as  we  have  described  it,  and 
having  in  it  a  certain  capacity  for  evil  as_weU_as_for 
good,  what  would  it  come  to,  and  through  what  stages 
would    it   pass,    if  its  Rapacity    for   evil   were   realized 

gradually    but    without    any. abatement  ?      In    actual 

human  experience  there  is  always  some  abatement ; 
there  are  always  counteracting  circumstances  which 
prevent  any  one  tendency  working  itself  out  in  isolation 
and  unhindered  ;  but  the  philosopher  may,  as  Plato  here 
does,  work  out  thj_result _gf  a  single  tendency  logically. 
These  books  therefore  put  before  us  an  ideal  history  of 
evil,,  as  ihe4ireviojis_books  put  .before  us  an -ideal  history 
of  j£pod. 

Plato  has  undertaken  in  the  Republic  to  explain  human 

1  Aristotle  {Politics,  1316  A  and  b)  criticizes  Plato  on  this  ground. 


296  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC* 

life  psychologically  (that  word  being  taken  in  the  widest 
sense).  He  has  here  to  interpret  in  this  manner  Greek 
history  and  Greek  life.  He  has  asked  himself,  How  can 
we  show  that  the  various  forms  of  Greek  life  are  trace- 
able to  the  working  of  certain  forces  in  human  nature  ? 
To  do  this  he  has  ransacked  Greek  life  to  find  material, 
and  has  concentrated  in  these  books  a  most  extraordinary 
knowledge  of  human  nature  in  general  and  of  Greek 
nature  in  particular.  Each  of  the  constitutions  of  society 
which  he  describes  is  really  an  expression  of  the  domi- 
nation of  a  certain  psychol^g^aj__tenclency  which,  if 
unchecked,  will  inevitably  produce  certain  results  in 
society  and  individual  life.  In  modern  times  an  en- 
quirer with  a  similar  object  might  ask  what  in  its 
essence  is  the  democratic  spirit ;  having  defined  it,  he 
might  then  go  on  to  ask  how  in  the  various  so-called 
democracies  of  the  world  this  spirit  has  manifested  itself; 
and  he  would  not  confine  himself  to  democracies  alone, 
he  would  find  democratic  elements  in  countries  in  which 
the  government  is  not  strictly  democratic.  If  he  then 
put  together  into  a  picture  all  the  material  he  had 
collected,  it  would  answer  to  no  actual  form  of  demo- 
cracy, but  it  would  give  in  a  concentrated  shape  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  general  effects  of  the  democratic 
spirit.  This  is  the  method  which  Plato  has  followed 
here. 

What  arc  the  tendencies  of  which  Plato  traces  the 
working?  His  conception  of  the  soul  is  the  same  that 
has  been  unfolded  in  Books  II  to  IV.  The  soul  is  one 
thing,  but  it  is  also  triple  ;  its  normal,  natural,  and  ideal 
condition  is  that  in  which  each  one  of  its  three  elements 
contributes  its  proper  work  to  the  economy  of  the  whole. 
Further,  this  condition  of  the  soul   involves  society,  for 


DECLINE  OF   SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       297 

the  soul  reaches  out  to  other  souls  at  every  point.  An 
ideal  community  of  souls  would  be  one  in  which  the 
capacities  of  every  individual  soul  werejully  developed 
and  its  wants  fully  satisfied.  This  would  be  the  case  if 
the  philosophic  element  in  man  ruled,  because  this  is  the 
element  in  him  which  is  capable  of  understanding  his 
true  interests,  and  of  living  for  those  interests— that  is, 
living  a  common  life.  Any  other  organization  than  that 
in  which  the  philosophic  element  rules  is  necessarily,  in 
its  degree,  imperfect,  and  is  one  in  which  the  relative 
position  of  the  elements  of  human  nature  is  not  normal. 
The  progress  of  evil  is  therefore  a  progress  in  disorgani- 
zation ;  that  is  to  say,  as  it  goes  on,  different  organs  or 
elements  of  society  or  of  the  individual  soul  come  more 
and  more  to  perform  their  wrong  functions.  What 
Plato  calls  timocracy,  the  first  stage  in  the  downward 
progress,  is  that  state  of  life  in  which  the  '  spirited ' 
element  dominates ;  the  philosophic  element  is  not 
thereby  eliminated,  it  simply  sinks  to  a  lower  level  and 
performs  functions  not  its  own,  becoming  the  servant  of 
'  spirit.'  The  next  logical  step  is  taken  when  '  appetite  ' 
becomes  dominant,  and  '  spirit '  and  reason  fall  into  the 
position  of  its  servants  and  instruments ;  this  is  '  olig- 
archy,' which  makes  the  satisfaction  of  material  wants 
the  end  of  life,  but  preserves  a  certain  external  order 
by  subjecting  the  crowd  of  appetites  under  the  rule  of 
one.  The  next  step  downward  is  within  the  region  of 
appetite  ;  freed  from  the  domination  of  the  desire  for 
wealth,  the  appetites  struggle  promiscuously  for  the 
mastery,  till  a  sort  of  temporary  equilibrium  without  any 
principle  is  effected  between  them  ;  this  is  '  democracy.' 
The  last  step  is  taken  when  this  equilibrium  of  appetites 
passes  into  the  absolute  despotism  of  the  lowest  or  of 


298         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

several  of  the  lowest — that  is  to  say,  the  least  compatible 
with  the  common  life  of  society,  the  most  selfish  ;  this  is 
'  tyranny.' 

In  the  picture  given  of  each  of  these  stages  we  must 
understand  the  relation  between  the  individual  man 
described  and  the  community  described.  Plato  de- 
scribes the  man  and  the  state  as  they  are,  and  also  the 
process  by  which  they  came  to  be  what  they  are.  In 
each  of  these  accounts  the  individual  represents  the 
inner  psychological  condition  which,  if  sufficiently  domi- 
nant in  a  state,  will  give  it  a  certain  character  or  bring 
about  in  it  a  certain  change ;  but  he  does  not  intend  to 
imply  that  such  an  individual  can  exist  only  in  a  corre- 
sponding state.  Take  oligarchy,  for  example.  The 
individual  oligarchic  man  is  one  who  is  dominated  by 
the  principle  of  seeking  material  wealth;  he  is  oligarchic 
so  far  as  he  consistently  lives  for  the  accumulation  of 
wealth.  Suppose  a  large  number  of  such  men  get 
together  in  any  society  and  are  backed  by  a  certain 
amount  of  force,  you  will  inevitably  get  a  political 
oligarchy  based  on  wealth.  Such  men  will  naturally 
try  to  rule  the  rest,  and  the  ruling  principle  in  themselves 
will  direct  them  to  form  a  constitution  in  accordance 
with  itself.  An  oligarchic  state  is  thus  the  oligarchic 
principle  in  men  'writ  large.'  But  there  may  of  course 
be  many  oligarchic  men  in  society  without  the  govern- 
ment being  an  oligarchy.  In  the  same  way  we  must 
interpret  Plato's  descriptions  of  the  transitions  from  one 
of  these  types  to  another.  As  has  been  said,  he  does 
not  give  them  as  historical  accounts  of  bow  any  parti- 
cular Greek  constitutions  arose.  He  has  taken  certain 
salient  features  in  the  history  of  a  number  of  individuals 
and    a    number    of    societies,    and    compounded    them 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       299 

together  into  typical  cases  made  to  illustrate  a  cer- 
tain principle  in  the  clearest  way.  His  account,  for 
instance,  of  the  transition  from  oligarchy  to  democracy 
means  that,  if  you  get  a  state  of  society  in  which 
the  pursuit  of  wealth  is  the  absorbing  object  of  life 
to  the  leading  people,  then  it  is  only  a  question  of  time 
for  that  tendency  to  sap  the  strength  of  the  community 
and  substitute  for  it  a  lower  form,  and  that  a  similar 
degradation  is  inevitable  in  the  case  of  individual  men  or  of 
families  when  once  they  have  come  to  regard  wealth  as  the 
chief  aim  in  life.  In  each  picture  all  the  traits  described 
are  symptoms  of  a  psychological  change  going  on  within  ; 
and  all  the  details  are  worth  studying.  These  Books 
have  been  called  the  first  attempt  to  construct  a  philo- 
sophy of  history.  A  philosophy  of  history  implies  that 
the  historian  can  see  certain  laws  or  principles  of  which 
human  history  exhibits  the  working.  Plato  has  taken 
certain  inherent  tendencies  of  human  nature,  and  inter- 
prets Greek  history  in  the  light  of  them  ;  not  that  the 
tendencies  he  describes  were  actually  working  alone,  so 
that  historically  events  could  exactly  correspond  to  his 
description,  but  that  wherever  he  looks  in  Greek  society 
he  sees  symptoms  of  them  working  underneath. 

Plato  arrives  finally  at  the  exact  reverse  of  what  he 
has  pictured  as  the  ideal  good  state  of  man  and  society. 
The  best  man  would  be  one  whose  self  was  as 
nearly  as  possible  identified  with  the  life  of  the  society 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  ultimately  with  the  laws 
or  order  of  the  world  of  which  he,  and  the  society  also, 
were  parts.  Men  never  completely  accomplish  this 
ideal,  but  they  are  actually  good  in  proportion  as  they 
accomplish  it  ;  the  test  of  a  man's  goodness  and  of  his 
greatness  is  the  extent  to  which  he  can  lead  a  common 


300         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

life  (not  necessarily  in  the  most  obvious  way  of  doing 
so 1),  or  can  identify  himself  with,  and  throw  himself  into, 
something  not  himself;  and  this  applies  to  men  of  the 
meanest  station  as  well  as  to  the  philosophic  statesman. 
Accordingly  the  worst  man  in  the  world  is  the  man  who 
is  most  limited  and  selfish.  Plato's  typical  tyrant, 
who  embodies  the  tyrannical  principle,  satisfies  at  all 
costs  one  of  the  poorest  of  his  appetites.  Supposing 
such  a  person  in  circumstances  which  are  not  favourable, 
he  remains  the  :  tyrannical  man,'  the  slave  of  a  despotic 
passion.  But  supposing  him  to  find  a  favourable  environ- 
ment, and  supposing  him  to  have  this  passion  strongly 
enough,  he  becomes  a  full-blown  '  tyrant,'  just  as  the 
philosopher,  if  he  finds  a  state  that  is  fit  for  him, 
becomes  a  king,  a  constitutional  ruler.  The  tyrant  is  the 
exact  counterpart  of  the  philosopher.  The  philosophic 
king  is  at  one  with  everybody  and  everything  about  him. 
The  tyrant — his  personality  concentrated  in  a  single 
dominant  passion — is  absolutely  alone;  he  is  the  enemy 
of  his  own  better  self,  of  the  human  kind,  and  of  God. 
Theoretically  the  owner  of  the  state,  in  reality  he  is 
absolutely  poor. 

Throughout  the  downward  course  by  which  this 
lowest  condition  is  reached,  the  end  which  men  set 
before  themselves  in  life  becomes  gradually  less  and  less 
worthy  of  human  nature  ;  and,  as  it  is  with  the  end  in 
life,  so  it  is  with  the  various  parts  of  life  which  work  for 
this  end.  At  each  step  the  true  principles  of  education 
are  more  and  more  neglected,  and  the  soul  fails  more 
and  more  to  find  its  proper  nurture, 
to  The  account  of  these  various  stages  of  decline  begins 

with  the  fall  of  the  ideal  state.      Mow  does  decay  first  set 
1  Cf.  Section  X.  p.  227  of  the  Lectun   . 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       301 

in  in  the  perfect  state  ?  In  asking  this  Plato  really  has 
before  him  the  general  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil — 
the  question,  how  does  it  come  about  that  the  world  is 
not  so  perfect  as  it  might  be  ?  But  the  transition  from 
the  ideal  society  to  timocracy  is  related  as  if  it  were 
an  historical  event.  It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  Plato 
thought  there  actually  had  been  forms  of  human  life 
much  more  perfect  than  existed  in  Greece  in  the  times 
of  which  he  knew.  He  certainly  saw  in  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  best  forms  of  society  in  Greece  some  imperfect 
approximations  to  what  human  society  might  be,  but  we 
need  not  suppose  that  he  thought  any  more  perfect 
approximation  to  it  had  gone  before  these.  Having 
formed  his  own  ideal  conception  as  a  standard  of  criti- 
cism, he  naturally  represents  the  types  of  existing  society 
which  he  is  going  to  judge  as  so  many  removes  from  it  ; 
but  this  does  not  imply  a  serious  belief  in  the  existence 
of  his  ideal.  He  is  however  quite  serious  with  the  idea, 
which  he  here  expresses,  that  no  human  institutions, 
even  the  most  perfect,  can  be  permanent.  '  Can  our 
present  European  civilization  permanently  progress,  or 
permanently  exist  ? '  '  Can  any  national  life  go  on  without 
decay?' — these  are  analogous  questions  to  that  which 
was  in  Plato's  mind. 

The  cause  of  decline  in  any  society  must,  he  asserts, 
be  division  and  faction  ^'orao-is)  among  its  rulers.  As 
long  as  they  are  of  like  mind,  it  is  impossible  for  the 
society  to  break  up.  So  much  is  clear,  but  we  must 
call  on  the  Muses  to  tell  us  the  beginning  of  divisions 
in  our  ideal  state.  This  is  an  example  of  a  way  of 
speaking,  half  serious,  half  humorous,  which  Plato  uses 
when  he  comes  across  a  question  that  cannot  be  scienti- 
fically dealt  with  ;  in  the  same  way  he  adopts  the  Ian- 


302         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

guage  of  mythology  or  poetry  when  he  is  speaking  of 
the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  soul.  '  Let  us  suppose,' 
he  says  here,  'that  the  Muses  are  speaking  to  us  jest- 
ingly, as  if  we  were  children,  and  in  language  of  mock 
solemnity.' 

The  principle  at  the  foundation  of  the  answer  given  by 
the  Muses  is  that  everything  which  has  come  into  being 
is  liable  to  cease  to  be.  Therefore  human  society,  which 
has  come  into  being,  however  well  it  may  be  knit  together, 
is  subject  to  dissolution.  And  what  form  will  the  disso- 
lution of  this  society  take?  Here  another  general  law  is 
enunciated,  applying  to  all  organic  life,  or,  as  he  says, 
to  everything  in  which  soul  and  body  are  united.  All 
organic  things  have  predestined  periods,  longer  or  shorter 
according  to  their  nature,  upon  which  their  inherent 
vitality  and  power  of  reproducing  themselves  depend1. 
At  certain  intervals  the  vitality  of  souls  that  are  in  human 
bodies  becomes  feeble  and  the  soul  is  comparatively 
unproductive.  If  a  number  of  children  are  produced  at 
such  times  they  will  form  an  inferior  race,  and  society 
must  decline.  The  number  which  Plato  now  gives  in 
an  enigmatic  way  expresses  the  periods  at  which  these 
critical  moments  occur.  We  need  not  attach  any  im- 
portance to  the  particular  number  ;  the  passage  expresses 
Plato's  belief  that  there  arc  fixed  laws  governing  this 
matter,  which  arc  capable  of  being  definitely  stated. 
But,  he  says,  however  wise  the  best  minds  of  a  society 
may  be,  their  intelligence  is  necessarily  alloyed  with 
sense ;    hence    they    will    not    perfectly    understand    the 

1  The  notion  of  fixed  recurring  periods  of  fatal  importance  to  the  soul 
is  found  in  various  forms  in  Politicus,  1169c  sqq.  (especially  272  n  and  rc) ; 
Phacthus,  248  a  to  249  u  ;  Laws,  X.  903  )i  sqq. ;  Tiinacus,  42  b-e  ;  and 
Republic,  X.  617  D. 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       303 

laws  of  human  generation,  and  owing  to  their  mistakes 
children  will  inevitably  be  born  who  are  inferior  to  their 
parents  ;  and,  when  the  decline  has  once  set  in,  it  will 
inevitably  increase.  Thus  the  decline  of  human  society 
is  brought  about  by  its  failure  to  understand  the  laws 
of  its  own  life. 

Plato  has  anticipated  the  notion  that  a  human  society 
is  in  some  sense  an  organic  thing,  having  its  own  laws 
of  growth  and  decay.  He  offers  no  evidence  for  what 
he  says,  but  his  fundamental  idea,  that  there  are  unknown 
conditions  favourable  and  unfavourable  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  vigour  of  a  race,  has  remained  to  the 
present  day.  It  still  seems  to  many  natural  to  suppose 
that  every  decay  of  a  nation  is  caused  by  some  loss  of 
vital  power,  and  that  there  are  laws,  however  undiscover- 
able  they  may  be,  upon  which  the  loss  or  maintenance 
of  that  vital  power  depends. 

Society  then  will  inevitably  fall  away  from  the  ideal  547  a  to 
state  ;  at  any  rate  the  best  forms  of  existing  society  are 
a  compromise  between  that  which  is  highest  and  that 
which  is  lowest  in  human  nature.  What  are  the  par- 
ticular symptoms  of  imperfection  which  even  the  best, 
timocracy1,  exhibits?  Its  inherent  imperfection  shows 
itself,  when  judged  by  the  standard  of  the  ideal  state, 
in  two  main  points.  The  first  is  the  institution  of  private 
property  in  the  possession  of  the  ruling  class  ;  the  second 
is  the  fact  that  those  who  are  ruled  are  regarded  as  the 
subjects  and  slaves  of  the  rulers.  The  first  of  these 
defects  does  away  with  the  perfect  identity  of  interests 
between  the  rulers  and  the  state.     The  second  destroys 

1  Timocracy  means  here  the  state  in  which  honour  is  made  the 
dominant  motive  of  action.  It  is  used  in  quite  another  sense  in 
Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  VIII.  x.  r. 


304    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

the  relation  of  perfect  co-operation  and  give  and  take, 
which  ought  to  exist  between  the  different  classes  of 
the  community.  Those  who  are  ruled  should  regard  the 
ruling  class  as  their  protectors  and  saviours,  and  the 
rulers  should  regard  them  as  the  friends  who  supply 
all  their  material  needs 1.  As  soon  as  you  get  society 
divided  into  subjects  and  kings,  slaves  and  masters, 
this  relation  of  common  interests  and  reciprocal  services 
is  at  an  end. 

Plato  traces  these  facts  to  their  psychological  origin. 
They  are  concessions  to  the  selfish  principle  in  man,  and 
they  express  the  fact  that  the  highest  element  in  human 
nature,  reason,  has  been  dethroned  from  its  place.  In 
its  stead  '  spirit,'  the  honour-loving  element,  the  element 
that  seeks  for  personal  distinction,  rules.  Personal  dis- 
tinction is  the  guiding  principle  of  the  timocratic  man ; 
that  is  to  say,  it  is  the  thing  which  such  a  man  at  his  best 
moments  lives  for.  From  the  rule  of 'spirit '  result  several 
features  of  Spartan  life,  which  Plato  mentions  with 
approval :  the  prevailing  respect  for  authority,  the  atten- 
tion paid  to  gymnastic  and  military  training,  the  common 
meals  of  the  governing  class  (£i>o-<rma),  and  the  law  that 
they  should  not  engage  in  trade.  On  the  other  hand 
reason  has  been  degraded  and  made  merely  the  servant 
of  military  organization  and  strategy.  Therefore  reason 
itself  becomes  degenerate,  and  the  general  suspicion  in 
which  exceptional  abilities  are  held  shows  that  reason, 
not  being  exercised  on  the  highest  object,  the  good  of 
the  community,  loses  its  simplicity  and  integrity.  And, 
as  the  highest  clement  suffers,  so  the  whole  life  of  the 
society  suffers.  The  appetites  for  the  commodities  which 
give  the  command  of  enjoyment,  instead  of  being  kept  in 
1  Cf.  V.  463  n. 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL      305 

their  place  and  being  absorbed  in  providing  the  neces- 
saries of  life,  begin  to  assert  themselves  on  their  own 
account ;  the  great  symptom  of  this  which  Plato  notices 
is  that  avarice,  which  is  professedly  tabooed  in  this  society, 
is  nevertheless  growing  up  in  the  dark.  You  cannot 
eradicate  appetite,  and  the  more  you  fail  to  educate  the 
best  things  in  human  nature  the  more  the  worst  things 
will  assert  themselves ;  and  so  beneath  the  fair  exterior 
of  honour  one_of  the  lowest  qualities  is  developing 
itself.  The  secret  growth  of  avarice  in  spite  of  the  laws 
is  alluded  to  by  Aristotle 1  also  as  a  feature  of  Spartan 
society  in  his  time2.  Here,  in  the  description  of  the 
typical  timocratic  state,  the  love  of  money  is  represented 
as  growing  till  it  becomes  the  dominant  force  in  social 
life,  and  the  institutions  of  the  state  are  transformed  in 
accordance  with  it,  political  power  being  made  to  depend 
on  wealth. 

In  the  life  of  the  individual  timocratic  man  a  similar 
process  is  at  work.  The  typical  timocratic  man  is 
represented  as  the  son  of  a  '  good  man, '  a  philosopher, 
in  a  state  where  the  best  men  are  divorced  from  public 
life,  and  where  public  affairs  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
selfish  and  unprincipled.  Ambition  makes  him  despise 
his  father's  ways,  and  he  plunges  into  a  public  career. 
At  first  honour  keeps  him  straight ;  but  as  he  gets 
older  this  impulse,  unsupported  in  his  case  by  reason, 
degenerates  into  mere  self-assertion,  and,  the  appeti- 
tive element  breaking  loose,  he  ends  by  becoming  a 
lover  of  money.  This  takes  place  because  he  has 
neglected    the    '  one   thing   that    can   preserve   a   man's 

1  Politics,  1270  A,  11  sqq. ,  and  1307  A,  34  sq. 

2  For  the  explicit  connexion  of  timocracy  with  Sparta  and  with  Crete 
see  544  c. 

VOL.  II.  X 


306         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

goodness  through  his  life,  reason  blended  with  music 
(Aoyos  fxova-LKJ]  KeKpaixevos).' 

Plato's  view  of  Sparta  is  well  illustrated  by  a 
passage  in  the  Laws 1.  He  there  tells  us  that  the  self- 
control  of  which  the  Spartans  are  so  proud  fails  under 
circumstances  to  which  they  are  not  used,  namely  when 
they  are  exposed  to  the  temptations  of  pleasure  instead 
of  those  of  danger  and  pain.  His  admiration  of  Sparta, 
like  Aristotle's,  was  confined  to  one  point.  The  Spartans 
were  the  only  people  in  Greece  who  had  deliberately 
adopted  a  certain  principle  of  life  and  had  carried  it 
through  ;  and  both  writers  admired  the  care  given  to 
education  of  a  certain  kind,  the  respect  for  order  and 
discipline,  and  the  absorption  of  the  individual  in  the 
social  organization,  which  resulted  from  this  ;  but  both 
saw  well  enough  that  the  Spartan  life  and  the  objects 
at  which  this  organization  aimed  were  very  narrow2. 
550  c  to  The  rule  of  '  spirit '  (unsupported  by  reason,  which  was 

made  to  lead  and  not  to  serve)  having  allowed  appetite, 
the  third  element  in  human  nature,  to  grow,  this  in  turn 
becomes  the  ruling  power,  and  first  in  its  most  respect- 
able form,  desire  for  wealth.  Oligarchy  means  to  Plato 
the  supremacy  of  those  appetites  for  the  necessaries 
of  life,  which,  when  kept  in  their  proper  subordination, 
are  the  most  serviceable  appetites.  It  is  that  form  of 
constitution  in  which  wealth  is  openly  acknowledged  as 
the  end  of  life,  the  thing  most  worth  living  for,  and  the 
thing  the  possession  of  which  makes  one  man  better  than 
another.  The  political  constitution  by  which  political 
power  is  given  to  the  wealthy  is  only  the  expression  and 

1  I.  633  H  sqq. 

2  Cf.  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.   X.   9,  §  13  ;    also  Politics,   1333  B,   12  sqq.  ; 
'337  A,  31  ;   1338  B,  9  sqq.  ;   and  1294  II,  18  sq. 


555  A- 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       307 

public  recognition  of  what  the  leading  men  in  the  state 
believe  to  be  the  true  end  of  life.  The  most  important 
typical  consequences  of  the  adoption  of  this  constitution 
are  now  described.  First,  it  still  further  breaks  up  the  unity 
of  the  state  \  which  depends  upon  every  class  doing  its  own 
proper  work  for  the  community  ;  there  are  now  two  cities, 
one  of  rich,  and  one  of  poor,  no  longer  bound  together 
by  community  of  interest,  but  separated  by  diversity  of 
interests.  Secondly,  the  strength  of  the  state  diminishes 
as  its  unity  diminishes  ;  for  the  rich  are  afraid  to  arm 
the  poor,  and  they  themselves  are  getting  less  and  less 
capable  of  military  service  ;  there  is  growing  physical 
degeneracy.  Thirdly,  the  growth  of  money-getting 
involves  the  growth,  alongside  of  it,  of  money-wasting ; 
and  the  laws,  which  are  made  of  course  in  the  interest 
of  the  rich  nobility,  allow  and  encourage  unlimited 
alienation  of  property.  Outside  the  ranks  of  the  rich, 
there  is  poverty  sinking  into  pauperism  and  generating 
a  dangerous  class,  which  is  swelled  by  numbers  of  ruined 
spendthrifts  from  the  ranks  above.  The  existence  of 
this  dangerous  class  involves  forcible  repression,  but  the 
government  does  not  continue  long  to  be  backed  by  force. 
In  the  account  of  the  genesis  of  the  oligarchic  man  we 
have  a  typical  picture  of  Greek  life.  Aspirants  to 
political  distinction  are  constantly  being  ruined  by  mali- 
cious accusations  ((rvKo^avTia).  and  therefore  a  revulsion 
from  public  life  takes  place  in  the  better  class,  and  they 
narrow  their  minds  to  trade  and  commerce.  Reason 
is  now  still  further  degraded  into  a  mere  instrument  of 
money-making  ;  and  spirit  is  schooled  into  a  worship  of 
rich  men  and   riches.     Continued  neglect  of  education 

1  In  the  '  timocracy '  there  was  still  unity  for  purposes  of  military 
defence. 

X  2 


S&2  A. 


308         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

(airaibeva-La,  552  E,  554  B)  continues  to  produce  lowering 
of  character.  Externally  there  is  decency,  order,  and 
respectability  in  the  life  of  the  oligarchic  man,  but  the 
'  drone  appetites '  are  beginning  to  make  themselves  felt, 
though  as  yet  kept  in  check  by  the  absorbing  appetite 
for  wealth.  As  in  the  state  the  rich  restrain  but  do  not 
direct  the  poor,  so  in  the  individual  this  dominant  passion 
chains  the  others  but  does  not  employ  them,  and  they 
develop  into  a  dangerous  element  within  him.  The 
man,  like  the  state,  is  becoming  weak  because  he  cannot 
employ  the  whole  of  himself. 
555  b  to  Plato's   picture    of   the    rise   of  'democracy'    makes 

clearer  than  before  the  principles  which  underlie  his 
description  of  the  gradual  decline  of  human  life.  In  the 
first  place,  this  decline  is  determined  throughout  by  a 
gradual  change  in  that  which  is  made  the  good  or  end 
of  life.  In  the  second  place,  the  course  it  takes  follows 
logically  from  the  principle  that,  when  men  have  an 
appetite  for  a  certain  thing,  that  appetite  must  grow 
stronger  and  stronger  unless  there  is  something  else  in 
them  competent  to  check  it ;  at  each  stage  of  the  decline 
mere  appetite  absorbs  more  and  more  of  man's  life  into 
itself1.  The  psychological  explanation  of  the  origin  of 
democracy  is  found  in  the  object  which  is  recognized  as 
the  good  in  oligarchy,  and  the  insatiable  appetite  for  it 
which  oligarchy  encourages.  In  the  oligarchic  state 
everything  is  done  with  a  view  to  wealth,  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  legislation,  the  most  important  means  by 
which  the  life  of  society  is  regulated,  expresses  openly 
the  recognition  of  greed  as  the  true  principle  of  life  by 
the  dominant  people  in  the  state.  This  principle  ulti- 
mately overthrows  the  state.     Oligarchic  legislation  fails 

'   Cf.  IV.  424  A,  where  the  opposite  process  to  lliis  decline  is  referred  to. 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       309 

to  check  that  accumulation  of  wealth  in  a  few  hands 
which  leads  to  the  overthrow  of  oligarchy.  Plato  men- 
tions two  possible  legislative  checks  upon  this  accumu- 
lation, restrictions  upon  the  alienation  of  private  pro- 
perty, which  would  hinder  its  accumulation  in  a  few 
hands,  and  the  abolition  of  legal  means  for  the  recovery 
of  debts I,  which  would  check  the  gradual  ruin  of  the 
spendthrift  class.  Neither  of  these  steps  is  taken  in 
the  oligarchic  state,  because  it  is  the  interest  of  the 
leading  people  to  sell  up  as  many  of  their  own  class 
as  possible.  Ultimately  oligarchy  is  overthrown  be- 
cause the  rulers,  being  set  upon  wealth  only,  become 
degenerate,  and  the  people  discover  their  weakness ; 
having  overthrown  them,  either  with  foreign  help  or 
through  factions  among  the  oligarchs  themselves,  the 
people  come  into  power. 

Democracy  in  Plato  means  that  form  of  it  which 
Aristotle  distinguishes  as  unmitigated  or  pure  demo- 
cracy, in  which  liberty  and  equality,  in  the  sense  of  the 
liberty  of  everybody  to  do  whatever  he  pleases,  and  the 
equality  of  everybody  with  everybody  else  in  every 
respect,  are  the  strongest  principles  in  the  constitution. 
It  violates,  and  in  all  but  the  most  intense  way,  the  first 
principle  of  society.  That  principle  is  that  everybody 
differs  from  others,  and  should  do  that  which  he  is  fit  to 
do^  and  nothing  else.  In  defiance  of  this,  democracy 
'assigns  equality  alike  to  the  equal  and  the  unequal.' 
This  sums  up  Plato's  charge  against  what  he  understands 
by  democracy.  The  most  vital  point  in  which  this 
comes  out  is  government ;  democracy  asserts  that  there 
is  no  need  at  all  for  anybody  to  be  or  to  make  himself 
peculiarly  fitted  in  order  to  be  able  to  govern  -. 

1  Cf.  Arist.  Eth.  Nic.  IX.  i.  9.  -  Cf.  VI.  488  b. 


310         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

The  democratic  man  exhibits  in  his  individual  life  the 
character  which,  when  it  becomes  dominant  and  com- 
mands public  approval,  produces  democracy  in  the  sense 
that  has  been  described.  The  psychological  foundation 
of  democracy  is  a  new  form  of  the  rule  of  appetite  in  the 
individuals  who  give  the  state  its  character.  In  the  olig- 
archic man  the  desires  which  are  most  necessary,  and 
are  also  most  orderly,  concentrated,  and  respectable, 
dominate  ;  in  the  democratic  man  no  particular  appetite, 
but  appetite  generally,  governs.  This  absence  of  prin- 
ciple he,  like  the  democratic  state,  makes  into  a  principle. 
To  distinguish  him  from  the  oligarchic  man  Plato  here 
gives  us  a  division  of  the  appetitive  element  in  the  soul ; 
there  are  two  great  classes  of  appetites,  the  necessary  and 
the  unnecessary.  '  Necessary  appetites '  are  those  which 
cannot  be  got  rid  of,  and  to  this  class  belong  all  those  the 
satisfaction  of  which  does  good — good,  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  whole  man.  '  Unnecessary  appetites'  are  those  which 
can  be  got  rid  of  by  education  and  practice,  and  these 
are  appetites  the  satisfaction  of  which  does  no  good. 
The  necessary  appetites  are  also  called  the' wealth  - 
getting'  appetites  (x/»?jmaTioTiKai),  because  they  are 
productive  of  something  which  is  of  use ;  and  the 
unnecessary  appetites,  which  are  unproductive,  are 
called  the  'spending'  appetites.  Thus  the  appetite 
for  food  up  to  the  point  to  which  it  is  good  for  the 
bodily  organism  is  necessary  and  productive ;  desire 
for  food  beyond  that  point  is  unnecessary  and  unpro- 
ductive. The  typical  democratic  man,  then,  is  the  son 
of  an  oligarchic  man  in  whom  the  productive  desires  are 
predominant.  lie  is  brought  up  without  education,  and 
he  comes  into  fashionable  and  fast  society.  He  has 
nothing  to  feed  his  reason  upon  ;  therefore  there  is  no- 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       311 

thing  to  give  unity  to  his  appetites,  and  so  they  become 
1  motley  and  many-headed.'  They  fall,  however,  into  two 
main  divisions ;  one  of  these  consists  of  appetites  which 
are  still  partly  rational,  and  at  -first  these  have  the 
mastery  over  those  which  are  wholly  irrational,  being 
supported  by  the  traditions  of  the  mans  family.  But, 
as  the  more  rational  appetites  are  unsupported  in  their 
control  by  anything  in  the  man  himself,  that  is  by  his 
reason,  the  unproductive  appetites,  however  much  they 
have  been  cut  down,  sprout  again  whenever  the  external 
influences  which  have  helped  to  repress  them  are  removed. 
The  empty  place  of  reason  in  such  a  man  is  occupied  by 
a  counterfeit  reason  ;  quack  theories  (\^eu5ei?  kcu  a\a£6v€s 
Ao'yoi),  which  ally  themselves  with  his  unproductive 
appetites,  develop  into  a  brilliant  cynicism  which  ex- 
poses the  fallacies  of  so-called  morality.  This  is  the 
stage  of  '  initiation,'  in  which  the  soul  gets  rid  of  illusions, 
and  comes  to  see  through  many  things  and  to  call  them 
by  their  right  names,  calling,  for  example,  all  sense  of 
shame  cowardice.  Through  this  stage  the  soul  passes 
into  freedom,  or  living  as  one  pleases,  in  other  words 
anarchy.  Such  a  life  tends  to  bring  about  the  ultimate 
mastery  of  one  ruling  passion,  which  is  '  tyranny ' ;  but, 
with  luck,  as  the  man  grows  older,  he  will  settle  down 
into  a  state  of  compromise  or  balance  of  appetites,  in 
which  his  principle  is  to  be  the  creature  of  the  moment. 
He  denies  any  distinction  of  better  or  worse,  and  gives 
himself  in  turn  to  every  desire  upon  which  the  lot  falls. 
Asceticism  and  debauchery,  philosophy,  sport,  idleness, 
politics,  war,  successively  engage  him  1 ;  and  this  is  what 
he  calls  the  free   development  of  his  nature.     Such  a 

1  Cf.  Dryden's  Zimri  in  Absalom  and  A chitophel,  544  sqq. 


IX.  576  v.. 


312         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

man  will  be  the  object  of  general  admiration  and  envy 
in  the  democratic  state. 
562  a  to  As   democracy   developed    out    of  oligarchy,  so    the 

tyrannic  principle  develops  logically  out  of  the  demo- 
cratic. Tyranny  arises  from  the  inevitable  excessive 
pursuit  of  that  which  democracy  recognizes  as  the  good, 
namely  absolute  liberty.  All  appetite  is  essentially 
insatiate1,  and  it  is  the  inherent  tendency  of  the  demo- 
cratic desire  for  liberty  to  grow,  unless  it  is  checked. 
All  the  peculiar  institutions  ascribed  to  extreme  demo- 
cracy proceed  from  this,  and  the  tendency  increases 
until  at  last  it  makes  people  so  '  delicate '  that  they  can 
stand  no  restraint  whatever.  There  is,  Plato  observes,  a 
law  of  reaction,  to  be  seen  in  the  changes  of  the  weather 
and  in  the  varying  states  of  physical  organisms,  and  in 
the  history  of  political  communities  no  less,  according 
to  which  excess  in  one  direction  is  generally  followed  by 
excess  in  the  opposite  direction.  And  so,  in  the  case  of 
the  democratic  state,  out  of  absolute  liberty  absolute 
servitude  proceeds.  In  the  typical  case  of  such  a  revo- 
lution, which  he  goes  on  to  describe,  democratic  society 
has  fallen  into  three  main  divisions.  There  is  a  class  of 
ruined  spendthrifts  and  adventurers,  which  already 
existed  under  oligarchy,  but  which  under  democracy  has 
become  the  most  prominent  and  the  loudest-voiced 
clement  in  the  state.  There  is  a  class  of  orderly  and 
quiet  money-makers  whose  wealth  forms  the  '  pasture  of 
the  drones'  of  society.  There  is  lastly  the  mass  of  citi- 
zens who  work  with  their  hands.  Theoretically  they  arc 
the  ruling  class,  for  they  have  the  majority  of  votes,  but 
they  only  can  or  only  will  take  ;i  constant  part  in  public 
affairs  if  they  are  paid  for  so  doing,  and  accordingly  the 
1  Cf.  Arist.  Eth.  Nic.  III.  xii.  7. 


DECLINE  OF  SOCIETY  AND  OF  THE  SOUL       313 

adventurers,  who  are  the  political  leaders  of  the  state,  are 
always  paying  them  out  of  the  money  of  the  rich  '.  In 
time  the  rich  come  to  an  end  of  their  endurance,  and 
resist  this  system  of  plunder.  Thereupon  an  outcry 
is  raised  against  them,  they  are  denounced  as  cursed 
oligarchs,  and  accusations  of  seditious  conspiracy  are 
brought  against  them.  In  this  time  of  excitement  the 
boldest  and  most  unscrupulous  of  the  political  adven- 
turers steps  forward  as  the  friend  of  the  people  and  the 
champion  of  democracy.  The  critical  point,  when  his 
destiny  is  decided,  and  the  champion  of  the  people 
becomes  a  tyrant,  is  reached  when  he  first  sheds  the 
blood  of  the  rich  who  oppose  him.  He  is  then  no  longer 
his  own  master,  but  is  inevitably  driven  on  to  shed  more 
blood.  Under  the  pretext  that  the  enemies  of  the  state 
are  plotting  against  his  life,  he  persuades  the  people  to 
grant  him  a  body-guard.  When  armed  force  is  once  at 
his  disposal  he  has  obtained  the  power  of  a  tyrant,  and 
the  necessities  and  fears  of  the  position  in  which  he  is 
now  placed  lead  him  to  further  and  further  acts  of 
tyranny,  to  establish  his  power. 

In  describing  how  the  '  tyrannic '  type  of  individual 
character  arises,  Plato  brings  in  a  further  division  of  the 
appetitive  elements  in  the  soul.  Among  the  unnecessary 
appetites  there  are  some  that  are  altogether  lawless, 
•  wild-beast '  appetites  2.  These,  Plato  says,  exist  even 
in  men  of  the  best  regulated  life,  but  they  are  kept  in 
check,  or  come  out  only  in  dreams,  when  reason  has  least 

1  Cf.  Aristophanes,  Knights,  791  sqq.  and  12 18  sqq.  (in  attack  on 
Cleon)  ;  also  Demosthenes,  Olynth.  III.  31. 

2  Td  0Tjpia>5es  re  ical  a-ypiov.  In  somewhat  the  same  way  Aristotle 
\Eth.  VII.  i.  and  v.)  describes  the  6r/piujSeis  efeis  as  the  extreme  of  human 
badness,  corresponding  to  'heroic  and  divine  virtues'  which  are  the 
extreme  of  human  goodness. 


3M         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC 

control  over  the  soul l.  They  cannot  be  tamed  ;  most 
desires  can  be  made  to  fill  a  serviceable  part  in  the 
economy  of  life,  but  these  cannot.  The  tyrannic  man,  of 
whom  the  actual  tyrant  is  the  most  extreme  type,  is  one 
who  is  himself  tyrannized  over  by  a  single  dominant 
appetite  of  this  sort.  He  thus  differs  from  the  democratic 
man.  The  soul  of  the  democratic  man  has  gradually  lost 
its  unity,  but  a  sort  of  equilibrium  exists  between  the  varied 
desires  which  sway  it.  He  can  only  remain  democratic, 
and  live  upon  the  principle  of  having  no  principle,  so  long 
as  this  equilibrium  lasts.  But  it  cannot  be  expected  to  last 
long  ;  the  tendency  must  be  for  a  few  of  his  appetites,  and 
ultimately  for  a  single  appetite,  to  become  dominant  over 
the  others  ;  and,  when  once  a  single  appetite  has  got  the 
lead,  it  goes  on,  like  the  tyrant  in  the  state,  extending  its 
sway,  till  at  last  it  swallows  up  the  whole  man.  A  man 
so  mastered  by  a  single  bestial  passion  will  for  the  sake 
of  it  commit  any  crime.  When  there  are  only  a  few  such 
men  in  a  state,  they  will  be  criminals  on  a  small  scale, 
but  when  this  lawless  character  becomes  common,  the 
end  will  be  that  the  most  tyrannic  man,  the  man  most 
dominated  by  his  one  passion,  will  make  himself  tyrant 
of  the  state. 

1  On  dreams  and  visions  in  this  connexion  cf.  Tint.  70  D-72  B. 


XIV.    COMPARISON    OF    THE    JUST 
AND   THE    UNJUST    LIFE 

{Republic,  IX.  576  B  to  end.] 

The  leading  types  of  imperfect  states  and  of  imperfect 
individual  lives  have  now  been  described,  ending  with 
a  state  which  is  in  the  utmost  conceivable  degree 
opposite  to  the  ideal  state  \  and  with  a  life  which  is 
in  the  utmost  conceivable  degree  opposite  to  the  just 
life.  Plato  proceeds  to  deal  with  the  question  of  the 
happiness  of  these  lives,  matching  the  just  man  against 
the  unjust  in  three  comparisons  drawn  from  three 
different  points  of  view,  three  Olympic  contests  as  he 
calls  them,  in  which  Glaucon,  who  began  by  stating  the 
claims  of  injustice,  is  made  to  declare  which  is  victor. 

1  [This  state  is  no  longer  called  apiaroKparia,  as  in  VIII.  544  E,  545  D, 
but  (by  implication)  0aat\da  (legitimate  monarchy),  i.  e.  the  state  in  which 
the  one  best  man  of  all  has  most  power,  the  extreme  opposite  to  rvpavvts. 
See  Politicus,  302  B  sq. ,  and  cf.  Aristotle,  Politics,  1279  A,  33  sq.  In  the 
connecting  section  at  the  end  of  IV.  (445  D)  the  ideal  state,  we  are  told, 
may  be  called  indifferently  apiaroKparia  or  PaatAtia.  There  is  probably  no 
political  significance  in  the  change  of  phrase  here ;  the  @aai\evs  is  brought 
in  for  the  sake  of  comparison  with  the  rvpavvos,  being  the  good  man 
placed  in  the  position  where  his  goodness  can  develop  itself  on  the 
largest  scale. — Ed.] 


3i6         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    'REPUBLIC* 

This  is  therefore  the  formal  answer  to  the  original 
question  with  which  the  argument  began  in  Book  II. 

The  discussion  that  follows  is  unsatisfactory,  as  any 
discussion  of  the  relative  values  of  different  states  of 
consciousness  always  must  be.  Nobody  can  prove  that 
his  own  life  or  his  own  form  of  happiness  is  better  worth 
having  than  another,  for  everybody  is  ultimately  his 
own  judge.  But,  if  there  is  to  be  a  discussion  in  which, 
as  in  this  case,  the  arguer  has  practically  prejudged  the 
question  before  he  begins  his  argument,  its  interest  for 
us  lies  in  observing  the  principle  upon  which  he  has 
formed  his  judgment,  and  the  canons  of  criticism  which 
he  applies.  Here  Plato  begins  by  laying  down  the 
principle  upon  which  the  comparison  between  these 
different  lives  is  to  be  made.  It  must  be  made  not 
upon  an  external  view  but  on  a  view  which  penetrates 
to  the  inner  life  of  the  man,  and  which  sees  him,  not 
as  he  shows  himself  to  the  world,  but  stripped  and  bare  ; 
or,  as  we  may  say,  interpreting  the  method  which  Plato 
actually  applies,  it  must  be  made  upon  a  complete  view 
which  takes  in  the  whole  man. 
577  b  to  ( 1 )  First  of  all  Plato  takes  three  of  the  principal  forms 

of  well-being:  freedom,  wealth,  and  security  from  fear, 
which  answer  in  some  degree  to  the  ends  which  the 
democratic,  the  oligarchic,  and  the  timocratic  characters 
respectively  set  themselves  to  obtain.  He  asks,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  an  intelligent  and  impartial  out- 
sider who  has  observed  the  different  lives  as  they  have 
been  described,  Which  man  is  really  free,  which  is  really 
rich,  which  is  really  without  fears — the  most  just  or  the 
most  unjust?  The  most  important  point  in  this  passage 
is  the  conception  of  freedom  which  it  involves.  It  may 
be  said,  no  doubt,  that  the  tyrannic  man,  being  one  who 


;8o  c. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  317 

does  exactly  what    he   pleases,  is  the    freest   man,  and 
especially  if  circumstances  let  him  develop  to  the  full  and 
he  becomes  a  tyrant,  for  he  is  then  ex  hypothesi  auto- 
cratic and  omnipotent.     Plato  asserts  on  the  contrary  that 
he  is  an  absolute  slave,  because  if  you  look  at  his  whole 
soul   you  will  see  that  he   least  of  all   men  does  what 
he  wishes.     This  is  a  simple  expression  of  Plato's  con- 
ception of  freedom  of  will.     Freedom  is  doing  what  one 
wills,  the  freest  man  is  he  who  most  does  what  he  wills. 
and  that  means  the  man  whose  whole  self  does  what  it 
wills.     Now  in  the  tyrannic  man  nearly  the  whole  self 
is  in  abeyance ;  it  is  enslaved  to  one  shred  or  fragment 
of    human    nature.      Similarly    in    the    Gorgias x    Plato 
declares    that    tyrants    do    nothing    that    they    desire 
(a  fiovkovTcu).    Here  '  what  one  desires  '  means  the  really 
desirable  (in  Aristotle's   phrase,  airXios   /SouAtjtoV).     The 
really  desirable   is  that  which   is   desirable  to  the   real 
or  true   self,  and    the   real  self  means  the  whole  self. 
Throughout  the  moral  philosophy  of  Plato  and  Aristotle 
there  runs  the  conception  of  an  order  not  only  of  the 
physical    but   of  the   moral  world,  to  which   we  must 
conform  if  we  would  be  at  our  best,  or,  in  other  words, 
if    we   would   satisfy  our  nature :    and   along  with    this 
ffoes  the  kindred  idea  that  the  higher  nature  is,  so  to 
speak,  the  truth   of  the   lower,   that   is   that   the  lower 
nature  finds  what  it  aims  at  in  the   satisfaction  of  the 
higher.     Freedom,  accordingly,  or  doing  what  one  wills, 
is  not  the  power  to  satisfy  any  and  every  desire,  but  the 
power  to  satisfy  those  desires  in  which  the  whole  self 
finds  satisfaction. 

The   idea  of  true  wealth,   which    is   next   introduced 
in  this  passage,  and  which  is  like  that  of  the  New  Tes- 

1    466  D  sqq. 


318         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

tament,  has  already  appeared  in  Book  III,  where  Plato 
refused  to  let  the  Guardians  be  rich  in  money  and  land 
on  the  ground  that,  if  they  lived  up  to  their  position, 
they  would  always  have  the  true  wealth  l.  Unlike  them 
the  tyrannic  soul  is  emphatically  poor,  for  it  is  always 
wanting  and  never  satisfied  ;  it  is  incapable  of  being 
filled  (cnrXTjoTos) 2.  Similarly,  it  is  the  nature  of  such 
a  soul  always  to  have  something  to  fear  and  never  to 
feel  secure. 

The  tyrannic  soul,  then,  is  all  unsatisfied  desire.  But, 
completely  to  realize  this  ideal  of  misery,  the  tyrannic 
man  must  have  scope  given  to  his  nature  by  becoming 
a  full-blown  tyrant.  As  the  philosopher  is  not  all  that 
he  can  be  unless  he  finds  a  state  meet  for  him,  where 
his  activity  has  full  scope  3,  so  it  is  with  the  tyrannic 
man.  It  is  only  when  he  becomes  the  ruler  of  a  com- 
munity that  he  reaches  the  full  measure  of  his  destruc- 
tivencss,  and  then  he  attains  the  complete  misery  of 
absolute  isolation.  The  ideal  of  well-being  is  that  a  man 
should  realize  to  the  full  his  communion  with  his  fellow 
men  ;  the  tyrant  is  absolutely  cut  off  from  his  fellows. 
Moreover,  seeming  to  be  free  and  powerful,  he,  beyond 
all  other  men,  is  under  the  compulsion  of  constant  fear. 
580 1)  to  (2)  In   the   second   part    of  the  comparison  between 

5  3A  the  just  and  the  unjust,  the  question  put  is  how  these 

different  lives  compare  in  respect  of  pleasantness  (ijbovij). 
The  point  of  view  from  which  Plato  enquires  into  this 
is  psychological,  and  the  passage  throws  a  good  deal 
of  light  on  his  conception  of  the  soul. 

1   416  E. 

s  Cf.  Gorgias,  493  a  to  i>,  where  the  soul  of  the  incontinent  man  is 
compared  to  a  sieve. 
3  497  A. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  319 

There  are,  as  we  have  already  learned  in  Book  IV, 
three  '  parts  '  or  '  forms  '  of  the  soul,  the  rational,  the 
spirited,  and  the  appetitive  (emflu/xrjTiKoV).  To  each  of 
these  forms,  as  we  are  now  told,  there  corresponds 
a  typical  object  of  desire  (e-rndvixia),  and  a  pleasure 
which  attends  the  satisfaction  of  that  desire.  Plato 
thus  attributes  a  desire  to  the  two  higher  forms  of 
this  soul  as  well  as  to  the  part  called  par  excellence 
(TTLdv^TiKov.  'ETTLOvjjiLa,  that  is,  is  used,  as  in  this  passage, 
in  the  general  sense  of  desire  (desire  for  food,  or  for 
truth,  or  for  anything  else),  and  also  (like  the  English 
'  appetite ')  in  the  narrower  and  more  usual  sense  of 
physical  desires.  It  is  in  the  latter  sense  that  the 
name  eindv^TiKov  has  been  given  to  the  third  element  in 
the  soul.  It  is  given  because  certain  bodily  appetites, 
owing  to  their  intensity  ((ripobporrjs),  have  acquired 
such  a  prominence  among  the  different  desires  of 
this  part  of  our  nature  that  they  may  be  allowed 
to  give  the  name  to  it  (580  e).  But  the  dominant 
object  among  all  the  various  objects  which  the  'appeti- 
tive '  element  seeks  is  material  wealth,  because  that 
is  the  general  instrument  for  satisfying  appetites. 
Accordingly  Plato  here  calls  this  element  the  '  wealth- 
seeking'  or  'gain-seeking'  part  of  the  soul  ((pikoxp-qy-aTov1 
koI  <pi\oKepb<£s) ;  and  in  speaking  of  those  in  whom  the 
appetitive  side  of  the  soul  predominates  as  lovers  of 
gain  he  does  not  distinguish  the  oligarchic,  the  demo- 
cratic, and  the  tyrannic  characters 2.     By  the  appetitive 

1  Also  in  IV.  435  E. 

2  Some  of  those  who  are  here  classed  together  may  of  course  be 
prodigal  of  money,  but  they  all  the  same  set  their  hearts  upon  the 
things  which  money  can  buy.  In  the  description  of  the  tyrannic  man 
573  s1-  the  development  of  lust  is  represented  as  bringing  with  it  at  first 
prodigality,  then  avarice  and  extortion. 


320    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

man  he  does  not  at  all  necessarily  mean  a  sensual  man, 
but  merely  one  whose  dominant  wish  is  to  be  physically 
comfortable  and  satisfied  x  ;  and  he  represents  the  great 
majority  of  men  in  every  state  as  appetitive,  not  because 
he  thinks  the  majority  of  men  are  sensualists  and  volup- 
tuaries, but  because  the  desire  for  physical  comfort  plays 
a  very  large  part  in  most  men's  lives.  In  the  present 
passage,  then,  for  the  sake  of  simplicity  the  pleasure  of 
material  gain  is  taken  as  the  characteristic  pleasure  of 
this  form  of  soul.  Next,  to  the  spirited  element  the 
typical  object  of  desire  is  to  win,  and  to  get  distinction, 
the  reward  of  winning  (vikclv  koi  evboKifXilv) ;  so  it  may 
be  described  as  that  which  loves  strife  and  loves  honour 
((\)iX6v€lkov  and  fpiXoTiy.ov).  Lastly,  the  desire  of  the 
rational  element  is  to  see  things  as  they  are,  and  it 
may  therefore  be  described  as  that  which  loves  know- 
ledge and  wisdom  (4>i\o[xa6es  kcu  <f>t\6<ro<f>ov). 

Mankind,  then,  falls  into  three  great  classes,  according 
as  one  or  another  of  these  three  elements  in  the  soul 
prevails  in  them.  Each  class  judges  its  own  pleasure 
to  be  the  most  pleasant,  and  regards  the  pleasures  of 
the  other  two  as  not  worth  having.  How  can  we  decide 
which  judges  best  ?  The  question  must  be  decided  by 
intelligent  experience  and  by  reasoning  ^ixireipiq  icai 
(f)l>ovri(T€i  teal  Ao'yw).  Which  then  of  these  three  types 
of  men  has   the    widest    experience    to    enable    him    to 

1  I  Nor  arc  all  the  tastes  in  which  a  man  shows  himself  fTTt6vfJ.ijTiKoi 
necessarily  tastes  for  bodily  pleasures  anil  comforts,  tu  tmBvfirjriKuv 
covers  besides  bodily  appetites  the  desire  for  anything  that  we  should 
call  mere  amusement.  The  democratic  man,  for  instance,  amuses  liimsc  1 1 
wiili  philosophy  and  even  with  occasional  ascetic  practices,  without  Plato 
thinking  him  any  the  less  tmffv/ttyrticds  for  that  Art  and  literature  also, 
not  only  when  they  arc  specially  sensuous,  but  so  far  as  they  are  simply 
the    gratification    of  fancy,  emphatically  minister  to   the  pleasure  of  to 

i  niOv}lT]TtKUl>.  —  Ed.  ] 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  321 

judge?  The  philosopher  has  necessarily  from  his 
earliest  years  had  experience  of  the  pleasures  which 
men  derive  from  gain  ;  and  the  pleasure  of  winning, 
and  of  the  honour  which  rewards  winning,  has  been 
experienced  by  everybody  who  has  ever  attained 
what  he  has  striven  for,  since  success  and  its 
rewards  are  not  the  prerogative  of  any  one  kind  of 
man.  Therefore,  so  far  as  personal  experience  goes, 
the  philosopher  has  the  experience  of  the  others  ;  but 
they  have  not  his ;  nor  has  their  experience  been 
intelligent  (fxera  (ppovqaeoos) ;  and,  so  far  as  reasoning 
on  the  matter  goes,  he  is  of  course  the  best  reasoner. 
He  then  is  the  best  judge. 

The  argument  is  unsatisfactory,  because  the  question 
at  issue  could  only  be  solved  for  any  one  by  an  appeal 
to  his  own  personal  experience ;  a  man  who  had  no 
experience  of  a  kind  of  pleasure  which  he  was  asked 
to  believe  was  better  than  his  own  could  not  be  con- 
vinced by  the  experience  of  another.  So  that,  if  such 
an  appeal  as  this  is  to  be  made  to  a  man,  he  must  start 
with  some  conception  of  a  higher  and  a  lower  persona- 
lity in  himself.  But  the  passage  is  interesting  because 
it  shows  that  by  the  philosophic  form  of  soul  Plato 
does  not  mean  one  which  exists,  so  to  say,  alongside 
of  and  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others.  He  thinks  of 
it  as  the  fullest  form  of  human  nature.  As  you  go 
downwards  from  this  fullest  form  of  personality, 
experience  becomes  more  limited.  We  may  illustrate 
this  conception  from  the  case  of  what  we  call  '  genius.' 
We  should  all  recognize  in  Shakespeare  a  personality 
which  was  not  exclusive,  but  which  might  be  said  to 
have  embraced  the  experience  of  all  kinds  of  lives. 
We   cannot   understand    the   works   of    such   a   genius 

VOL.  II.  Y 


322  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

fully,  because  we  have  not  the  experience  to  follow 
it,  and  so  genius  is  generally  incomprehensible  to  the 
majority  of  mankind ;  but  so  far  as  we  can  follow  the 
works  of  genius  we  do  enter  into  its  experience,  and 
we  should  admit  that  we  therein  taste  of  a  fuller 
experience  than  our  own.  We  must  be  careful,  again, 
not  to  misunderstand  what  Plato  means  by  experience. 
When  he  speaks  here  of  the  philosophic  soul  having 
of  necessity  the  experience  of  the  other  souls,  he  does 
not  mean  that  the  philosopher,  any  more  than  the 
great  poet,  has  gone  about  the  world  testing  various 
kinds  of  life,  but  that  the  higher  kind  of  man  learns 
more  from  the  experience  which  he  shares  with  the 
lower  kind  without  having  to  go  through  nearly  the 
same  amount  of  it ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  is  true. 
583  b  to  (3)  In  the  third  place  Plato  compares  the  pleasures 

588  a.  Q£  tnese  different  kinds  of  life  in  another  way.  The  form 
in  which  he  puts  his  question  is  no  longer,  Which  is 
the  plcasantest  of  these  pleasures  ?  or,  Which  is  the 
best  worth  having?  but,  Which  is  the  most  real  pleasure? 
The  pleasure  of  the  lower  kind  of  life  is,  he  contends, 
comparatively  not  pleasure  at  all.  First,  he  endeavours 
to  show  that  something  which  is  not  really  pleasure  is 
constantly  by  an  illusion  taken  for  pleasure.  True  or 
unmixed  {KaOajA)  pleasure  cannot,  he  says,  consist  in 
mere  relief  from  pain,  nor  true  pain  in  mere  cessation 
of  pleasure.  Between  pleasure  and  pain  there  is  a  neutral 
state  which  is  neither.  When  pain  passes  away  and  they 
enter  into  this  state,  people  call  it  pleasure,  and  equally 
when  pleasure  ceases  and  they  enter  into  this  state  they 
call  it  pain.  But  it  is  logically  absurd  to  call  a  state, 
which  is  neither  pleasure  nor  pain,  both  pleasure  and 
pain.     This  neutral   state  is  one  of  quiescence  (i]avyj-a), 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  323 

whereas  both  pleasure  and  pain  are  movements  (ki^o-cis) 
of  the  soul.  Now,  it  can  be  shown  by  simple  instances 
that  there  are  pleasures  which  are  not  preceded  by  pain, 
and  of  which  the  cessation  is  painless  ;  but  most  of  what 
are  ordinarily  called  bodily  pleasures  are  of  the  nature 
of  cessation  of  pain  ;  and,  on  the  principle  just  laid 
down,  they  cannot  be  real  pleasures.  But  it  is  easy 
to  see  how  the  name  of  pleasure  gets  appropriated  to 
them  by  so  many  people.  Just  as  a  man  who  has 
risen  half-way  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  elevation,  and 
who  has  never  seen  beyond  half-way,  may  think  him- 
self at  the  top,  so  these  cessations  of  pain  are  regarded 
as  pleasure  by  those  who  have  no  experience  of  what 
real  pleasure  is.  Now  what  is  the  real  pleasure  ? 
Pleasure  means  being  satisfied  (ttAt^coo-i?)  with  that 
which  naturally  satisfies.  The  reality  of  the  pleasure 
is  proportionate  to  the  reality  of  the  satisfaction  at- 
tained. If  the  satisfaction  is  transient  and  the  want 
keeps  recurring,  there  is  no  real  satisfaction  and  no 
real  pleasure.  And  so  the  question,  What  is  the  real 
pleasure  ?  brings  us  back  to  the  question  :  What  is  the 
most  real  element  in  the  human  soul ;  or  what  do 
we  mean  by  ourselves?  For  the  real  satisfaction  is 
that  which  satisfies  our  real  selves l. 

Plato's  question  whether  certain  pleasures  are  real 
is  difficult  to  understand.  There  is  a  difficulty  in  all 
questions  about  the  truth  of  feelings.  In  one  sense  all 
feelings  are  real  ;  what  we  feel,  we  feel ;  and  we  cannot 
suppose   that  Plato  is  questioning  that.     But  the  same 

1  [In  the  last  few  sentences  and  in  parts  of  the  following  discussion 
certain  points  in  Plato's  argument  acquire  a  relatively  stronger  emphasis 
than  they  have  in  the  original ;  but  it  has  been  thought  better  to  leave 
the  passage  untouched. — Ed.] 

V  2 


324  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

remark  applies  to  anything  of  which  the  reality  is  called 
in  question.  Everything  is  in  one  sense  real  ;  and  when 
we  ask,  Is  this  real  ?  we  do  not  mean,  Is  this  what  it  is  ? 
but,  Is  it  what  it  suggests?  or,  Is  it  accompanied  by 
what  we  suppose  it  to  be  accompanied  by?  or,  Is  it 
related  as  we  suppose  it  to  be  related?  or,  Does  it 
occupy  the  place  that  we  believe  it  to  occupy  ?  In  fact, 
it  is  absolutely  true  that,  in  asking  whether  a  given  thing 
is  real,  we  are  always  asking  about  something  else 
besides  it.  Suppose,  to  take  an  instance  of  a  feeling 
other  than  pleasure,  that  some  one  asked,  Am  I  really 
hot  ?  would  that  be  a  sensible  question  ?  It  would 
only  be  so  if  he  meant,  Is  this  feeling,  which  I  have, 
connected  with  certain  processes  in  my  body  which 
a  physiologist  would  associate  with  heat  ?  or,  If  I 
applied  a  thermometer  to  myself  would  the  mercury  rise 
to  a  certain  height  ?  or  something  of  that  sort.  The 
question  can  only  be  intelligently  asked  and  answered 
if  there  is,  in  the  feeling  which  it  concerns,  an  implied 
reference  to  something  else ;  for  asking  the  question 
implies  the  possibility  of  testing  the  feeling,  and  it 
cannot  be  tested  by  itself,  but  only  by  something  other 
than  it.  To  apply  this  to  Plato's  question  about  the 
reality  of  pleasure  and  pain,  there  can  be  no  discussion 
as  to  whether  a  man  does  or  does  not  feel  pleasure 
or  pain,  in  what  is  perhaps  the  most  obvious  sense  of  the 
words,  ('  you  cannot  argue  a  man  out  of  his  feelings,'  as 
we  say).  If  Plato's  question  is  to  be  asked  and  answered 
intelligently,  there  must  be  in  pleasure  or  pain  an  implied 
reference  to  something  else. 

Now  Plato  takes  pleasure  in  the  sense  of  being  satisfied1 

1  [The  only  difficulty  of  the  most  important  part  of  the  argument  arises 
from  the  fact  that  neither  '  pleasure  '  in  English  nor  '  ijhovq  '  in  Greek  is 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  325 

(to  nXripovo-dai),  which  is  a  natural  enough  way  of  defining 
it.  In  this  sense  any  particular  part  of  the  self  receives 
pleasure  when  it  is  satisfied  with  its  own  appropriate 
object,  and  it  can  be  satisfied  with  none  but  its  own  appro- 
priate object ;  you  cannot  satisfy  hunger  with  drink  or 
thirst  with  solid  food.  This  gives  us  a  point  of  view  from 
which  it  can  be  asked  which  is  the  most  real  pleasure. 
If  we  answer  that  the  self  or  soul,  though  it  is  a  manifold 
thing,  is  still  one  thing,  it  is  intelligible  to  ask,  In  which 
of  the  various  kinds  of  satisfaction  is  the  self  most  really 
satisfied  ?  and  that  is  what  Plato  means  when  he  asks 
which  is  the  most  real  pleasure.  He  puts  the  question 
in  a  naive  and  simple  form.  Is  the  self,  he  asks,  equally 
satisfied  in  the  satisfaction  of  hunger  and  in  the  satisfac- 
tion which  attends  the  attainment  of  truth  ?  Satisfaction 
is  real  in  proportion  as  it  is  permanent  (/3^/3atos).  Now 
when  we  satisfy  hunger  the  satisfaction  attained  has 
very  little  permanence  indeed  ;  we  are  always  getting 
hungry,  and  we  cannot  say  that  our  hunger  becomes 
more  satisfied  as  we  grow  older.  To  put  this  in  another 
way:    the  self  which  is    satisfied  by  eating  is   neither 

necessarily  or  indeed  commonly  equivalent  to  this.  The  word  '  pleasure  ' 
applies  to  a  temporary  state  of  feeling,  and  we  use  it  sometimes  with 
more,  sometimes  with  less  reference  to  the  belief  on  which  that  feeling 
depends,  and  to  the  feelings  which  will  succeed  it,  and  to  the  other 
feelings,  pleasant  or  painful,  with  which  the  specific  feeling  we  are  speak- 
ing of  is  inextricably  bound  up  ;  sometimes  we  use  it  with  no  such 
reference  at  all.  In  the  narrow  sense,  which  is  very  common,  a  pleasure 
is  just  as  truly  and  as  really  a  pleasure,  even  if  it  depends  on  an  entire 
mistake,  or  if  none  but  a  fool  would  feel  it.  Aristotle,  in  the  tenth  Book 
of  the  Ethics,  expressly  limits  the  use  of  the  word  ySovf)  to  this  narrow 
sense,  and  opposes  it  to  what  Plato  here  calls  pleasure.  This  latter  is 
what  a  man  would  deliberately  and  with  full  understanding  choose,  and 
be  permanently  content  to  have  had,  and  which  is  therefore  of  course 
a  more  real  pleasure  the  more  a  man  can  choose  it  deliberately  and  with 
his  whole  mind. — Ed.] 


326         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

a  large  part  of  the  self,  nor  a  part  which  is  constantly 
and  permanently  present  in  the  self.  We  might  try  to 
imagine  a  self  which  had  nothing  to  satisfy  but  physical 
hunger,  and  we  might  ask  how  much  satisfaction  it 
attains ;  or  we  might  equally  ask  how  much  of  a  self 
it  is,  what  is  the  amount  of  its  reality  ;  for  we  must 
remember  that  the  self  and  the  satisfaction  of  the  self 
are  not  separable,  the  self  is  the  satisfaction  it  attains. 
Such  a  being  would  be  always  going  up  and  down  from 
pain  to  satisfaction,  and  from  satisfaction  to  pain ;  it 
would  be  in  a  state  of  perpetual  fluctuation  between 
these  limits  ;  and  we  should  have  to  say  that  the  satis- 
faction attained  in  such  a  life  was  very  small  indeed, 
that  it  was  very  little  of  a  life,  and  the  self  very  little  of 
a  self.  Now  we  may  ask  another  question  :  Why  do  we 
all  despise  a  man  who  lives  to  eat  ?  The  ultimate  reason 
is  that  we  assume  that  there  are  in  him  other  capacities 
requiring  satisfaction,  and  that  the  part  of  the  man's  self 
which  is  satisfied  in  eating  is  very  small.  Adopting 
Plato's  phraseology,  we  may  say  that  the  man  who  lives 
to  eat  sacrifices  nearly  the  whole  of  self  to  one  small 
fragment.  A  very  good  practical  test  to  apply  to  the 
value  of  different  satisfactions  is  to  ask  how  much  of 
oneself  is  honestly  satisfied  by  each.  All  reflexions  on 
the  transient  nature  of  certain  satisfactions  come  back 
to  this  fact:  self  docs  not  exist  merely  in  isolated 
moments  of  satisfaction  ;  each  satisfaction  has  to  be  taken 
as  a  contribution  to  the  satisfaction  of  self  as  a  whole,  as 
is  seen  in  the  fact  that  wc  may  feel  remorse  even  in  the 
moments  of  satisfaction. 

Thus  Plato's  comparison  of  the  pleasures  of  the  higher 
and  lower  forms  of  life  resolves  itself  into  this :  that  in 
the  higher  form  of  life  a  larger  part  of  what  there  is  in 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  327 

the  soul  is  satisfied ;  that  in  it  the  soul  as  a  whole 
is  more  fully  what  it  has  the  capacity  to  be.  This  view 
he  helps  out  by  various  arguments  and  figures.  In  the 
first  place  there  is  the  figure  (584  D  sq.),  derived  from 
space,  of  the  higher  and  the  lower.  He  compares  life 
with  its  changing  states  of  pleasure  and  pain  to  rising  and 
falling  in  space  (and  many  other  people  have  described 
pleasure  as  the  sense  of  elevation).  He  applies  this 
figure  seriously ;  and  his  question  may  be  put  in  the 
form:  In  what  kind  of  satisfaction  does  the  soul  rise  to 
its  highest  elevation,  and  remain  most  permanently 
at  a  high  elevation  ?  Every  soul  is  perpetually,  in  the 
language  of  this  figure,  rising  and  sinking;  no  one  lives 
at  a  permanent  height. 

Plato  lays  stress  (584  c  and  586  B  sq.)  upon  the 
observation  that  in  the  satisfaction  of  most  bodily  appe- 
tites1 the  pleasure  which  results  is  of  a  markedly  relative 
character ;  as  he  and  Aristotle  say,  these  are  '  mixed 
pleasures.'  The  very  intensity  of  many  of  these  plea- 
sures, Plato  and  Aristotle  notice,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  are  in  felt  contrast  with  a  previous  pain.  The 
previous  pain  is,  so  to  say,  carried  on  into  the  pleasure 
and  '  colours '  it 2.  Thus  these  pleasures  are  not  pure  or 
unmixed  (Kadapai),  and  in  some  cases,  Plato  points  out  in 
the  Philebtisz,  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  a  feeling 
is  pleasant  or  painful,  and  a  phrase  like  our  '  bitter-sweet ' 
has  to  be  invented  to  describe  it. 

In  the  satisfaction  of  bodily  want,  the  sense  of  transi- 

1  We  commonly  use  the  phrase  '  bodily  pleasures'  of  pleasures  which 
we  have  come  to  localize  in  different  parts  of  the  body,  but  of  course 
all  pleasures  are  consciousness  and  in  that  sense  not  bodily. 

a  586  B.     Cf.  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  VII.  xiv.  4. 

3  46  C.  The  word  occurs  in  a  fragment  of  Sappho  (37),  epos  .  .  . 
■yXvKvmKpov  a^axo.vov  upireTov. 


328  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

tion  from  one  state  to  another  is  often  very  prominent 
and  violent,  and  probably  it  was  mainly  this  which  led 
Plato  to  describe  pleasure  as  a  movement  (ku/tjo-is)  *.  In 
all  pleasures  whatever  we  are  conscious  of  transition 
to  some  extent.  Every  human  being,  when  he  is  pleased, 
is  conscious  of  passing  from  a  state,  which  was  at  any 
rate  negative  in  regard  to  pleasure,  into  a  new  state.     It 

1  [This  must  not  be  taken  to  imply  that  Plato  uses  the  word  kIvt)<tis 
with  special  reference  to  the  class  of  pleasures  in  which  the  sense  of 
transition  is  most  violent.  In  the  passage  where  it  is  brought  in  (583  E) 
the  bodily  pleasures  which  are  said  to  be  so  intensely  felt  because  they 
are  transitions  from  previous  pain  are  not  more  of  the  nature  of  Kivrjaets 
than  the  other  and  more  real  pleasures  are.  The  point  there  made  about 
them  is  that  they  arise  merely  from  the  recovery  of  the  soul  from  the 
previous  Kivrjais  of  want  and  pain,  its  return  to  the  original  state  in  which 
it  was  before  the  pain  came  {■f]avxia%.  It  is  implied  that  the  pleasure 
the  soul  gets  in  obtaining  hold  of  truth  is  a  more  real  icivqats,  because 
it  is  the  accompaniment  of  an  elevation  of  the  soul  above  its  original 
level,  and  not  of  a  mere  recovery  from  previous  depression,  and  because 
this  elevation  is,  comparatively  at  least,  permanent.  In  the  more  obvious 
sense  Plato  would  certainly  have  said  that  the  lower  kind  of  soul  was 
more  subject  to  movement  and  change.  But  its  movement  is  mere 
fluctuation  (irXavq)  between  two  points  which  it  never  gets  beyond 
(586  a).  Pleasure  was  described  as  a  Ktvrjais  of  the  soul  by  Dcmocritus 
(v.  Ritter  and  Preller,  158),  who  meant  that  it  was  literally  a  disturbance 
of  the  arrangement  of  the  material  atoms  of  which  the  soul  consisted. 
He  contrasted  pleasure  with  (vOv^iia  (content),  which  was  the  real  good 
thing  to  aim  at  in  life,  and  which,  according  to  Seneca,  he  took  to  be 
'  stabilis  animi  sedes '  (perhaps  '  stable  equilibrium  of  the  soul'  would 
be  the  best  translation).  In  contrast  with  this  idea  Plato  and  Aristotle 
conceive  the  good  state  of  the  soul  not  simply  as  a  state  in  which  it  is 
undisturbed  by  -rraOi)  (though  it  is  that),  but  as  a  state  in  which  it  steadily 
develops  into  all  that  it  has  in  it  to  become.  Possibly  the  fact  that  here 
Plato  describes  the  higher  satisfactions  of  the  soul  as  Kivrjotis  (though 
Kivrjat';  consisting  not  in  fluctuation  but  in  progress)  is  a  symptom  of 
this  difference  in  his  view.  But,  though  the  word  Kivrjais  was  probably 
derived  directly  or  indirectly  from  Dcmocritus,  there  is  of  course  no 
reason  to  assume  any  allusion  to  his  views.  Nor  is  it  necessary  in  this 
confused  passage  to  assume  that  all  the  ideas  which  come  in  can  be 
developed  consistently  with  one  another. — Ed.] 


THE   JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  329 

is  true,  no  doubt,  as  Aristotle  remarks  \  that  the  actual 
sense  of  pleasure  is  not  a  sense  of  change,  but  still  it 
implies  change.  (Can  we  imagine  a  being  perfectly  un- 
changeable to  feel  pleasure  or  pain  ?  Plato's  own  state- 
ment 2  that  pleasure  cannot  be  predicated  of  a  divine 
life  may  strike  us  as  a  paradox ;  yet  we  also,  while  we 
regard  the  capacity  to  change  for  the  better  as  an  ad- 
vantage, on  the  other  hand  regard  the  necessity  for 
change  as  a  mark  of  imperfection  ;  and  so  to  us  a  per- 
fectly changeless  being  may  either  mean  one  so  far 
above  us  as  not  to  require  change,  or  one  so  far  below 
us  that  it  cannot  change  for  the  better3.)  Now,  most 
people  would  agree  with  Plato  that  in  the  higher  kinds 
of  satisfaction  the  sense  of  transition  is  much  less  violent 
and  marked  than  in  the  bodily  pleasures  :  for  example, 
in  the  enjoyment  of  art  it  is  so. 

But  an  objection  might  be  raised.  Is  it  not  an  equal 
necessity,  whether  the  satisfaction  be  higher  or  lower, 
that  it  should  always  be  preceded  by  a  want  ?  Why 
too,  we  may  ask,  does  Plato  dilate  on  the  insatiable 
nature  (a  77X17  or  ia)  of  bodily  appetite,  insisting  that  bodily 
satisfaction  is  no  satisfaction,  as  if  there  was  some  kind 
of  satisfaction  which  left  no  desire  behind  ?  For  the 
answer  to  these  questions  we  must  go  back  to  Plato's 
notion  of  permanence  in  satisfaction.  The  want  of 
knowledge  is  a  want,  and  a  want  which  is  never  com- 
pletely satisfied  ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  satisfaction, 
partial  though  it  may  be,  which  we  can  obtain  for  this 
want    the  soul    is  not  always  falling  back  to  the  same 

1  Eth.  Nic.  X.  iii.  4.  '  Phil.  33  B. 

3  Aristotle,  in  Eth.  Nic.  VII.  xiv.  8,  after  describing  the  necessity  for 
change  as  an  imperfection  of  our  mortal  nature,  declares  that  'God  enjoys 
ever  one  simple  pleasure.' 


33Q         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC 

level  as  before  the  satisfaction.  There  is  progress 
made,  the  self  definitely  advances,  and  each  satis- 
faction remains  a  permanent  element  in  the  self. 
Plato  expresses  this  in  a  bold  figure.  The  part  of  the 
soul  which  bodily  pleasures  satisfy  is  the  part  which  is 
not  'water-tight'  (artyov  586  b).  In  the  Gorgias1  the 
metaphor  is  developed,  and  the  appetitive  part  of 
the  soul,  at  least  in  those  who  live  for  the  satisfaction 
of  it  alone,  is  compared  to  a  vessel  full  of  holes.  The 
idea  which  these  passages  bring  out  is  that,  if  there 
is  any  self  at  all,  there  must  be  a  permanent  satisfaction 
for  it.  For  the  fact  is  that  the  soul  or  self  is  exactly  as 
much  as  it  gets  out  of  the  world  ;  and  so  far  as  the 
satisfaction  it  gets  is  perishable  the  self  is  perishable, 
and  so  far  no  self.  The  only  test  we  can  apply  to 
different  forms  of  satisfaction  of  ourselves  is  the  question, 
How  far  is  each,  when  we  have  obtained  it,  a  permanent 
element  in  ourselves  ? 

Here  (585  B  sq.)  and  in  the  Gorgias  the  idea  of  the 
unsatisfactory  nature  of  certain  pleasures  is  associated 
with  the  idea  of  their  illusoriness.  We  should  recognize 
that  to  take  what  will  not  satisfy  us  for  what  will  is 
a  form  of  mental  illusion,  but  we  should  not  naturally 
dwell  upon  that  side  of  moral  failure.  In  Plato,  however, 
the  ideas  of  intellectual  illusion  generally,  and  of  moral 
failure  to  find  satisfaction,  arc  closely  associated.  As  in 
the  sphere  of  knowledge,  according  to  his  idea,  the  soul 
is  what  it  gets  and  retains  of  truth,  so  in  the  sphere  of 
desire  the  soul  is  what  it  gets  and  retains.  On  the  side 
of  knowledge  and  on  the  side  of  desire,  the  soul  identifies 
itself  with  the  object  which  it  pursues.     On  each  of  these 

1   493  A  to  I). 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  331 

sides,  if  that  with  which  we  identify  ourselves  is  unreal 
and  transient,  so  too  are  we. 

What  has  been  said  of  living  for  the  satisfaction 
of  bodily  desires  applies  also,  Plato  briefly  tells  us 
(586  c  sq.),  to  the  pursuit  of  the  satisfaction  of  the 
'  spirited '  element  of  the  soul  for  its  own  sake,  the 
'  seeking  to  attain  personal  distinction,  or  victory  over 
others,  or  the  satisfaction  of  one's  anger  without  reason 
and  sense.'  Then  follows  an  important  passage.  Not 
only  are  the  lower  kinds  of  satisfaction  less  true  and 
real  than  the  higher,  but,  further,  the  amount  of  reality 
which  they  have  is  proportionate  to  the  degree  in  which 
they  are  subservient  to  higher  satisfactions.  At  first 
this  sounds  rather  a  paradox  ;  there  are  reasons  which 
might  make  us  say  that,  the  more  independent  of  any 
ulterior  object  a  desire  is,  the  more  likely  it  is  to  find 
full  satisfaction.  Plato  puts  the  matter  in  the  opposite 
way  ;  throughout  Books  VIII  and  IX  he  continually 
asserts  that,  the  more  one  element  of  the  soul  disengages 
itself  from  the  whole,  the  less  satisfaction  it  attains. 
To  take  a  crude  instance,  a  person  who  lived  merely  for 
eating  would  get  less  out  of  eating,  less  permanent 
satisfaction  for  himself,  than  a  person  who  ate  with 
the  consciousness  that  eating  served  some  higher  pur- 
pose. A  person  who  could  say  with  St.  Paul,  '  whether 
I  eat  or  drink,  I  do  all  to  the  glory  of  God,'  might 
mean  :  That  in  the  most  trivial  satisfactions  there  may 
be  a  sense  of  serving  something  wider  and  higher  than 
animal  appetite ;  that  this  gives  to  the  satisfaction  of 
appetite  a  permanence  and  a  satisfactoriness  which  by 
itself  it  cannot  have  ;  and  yet  that  in  this  lies  the  only 
appropriate  satisfaction  of  appetite,  or,  as  Plato  says,  its 
'own'  (oIkciov)  satisfaction. 


332         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    *  REPUBLIC  ' 

We  have  now  finished  the  threefold  comparison 
between  the  bliss  of  two  lives,  that  of  the  tyrannical  soul 
which  lives  most  completely  in  its  own  lowest  element, 
and  that  of  the  kingly  soul  which  lives  most  completely  in 
its  highest  ;  and  Plato  winds  up  the  discussion  with 
a  fantastic  mathematical  expression  of  the  difference  we 
have  found  between  them  (587  a  sq.).  Starting  with 
the  original  triple  division  of  the  soul  upon  which  the 
description  of  these  lives  was  based,  and  measuring  in 
one  dimension  the  differences  which  we  have  found 
between  them,  we  may  say  that  the  life  of  the  timocratic 
man,  in  which  the  highest  element  of  soul  is  unsatisfied, 
reaches  two-thirds  as  far  as  that  of  the  philosopher  or 
king,  in  which  all  these  elements  are  satisfied,  and 
that  the  life  of  the  oligarchic  man,  in  which  only  the 
appetitive  element  is  satisfied,  reaches  one-third  as  far. 
Then  taking  the  oligarchic  life,  which  is  the  life  of 
appetite  at  its  best,  and  remembering  the  triple  division 
of  the  appetitive  soul,  we  may  say  that  the  democratic 
life  reaches  two-thirds  as  far  as  the  oligarchic  and  the 
tyrannic  one-third  as  far.  So  the  tyrannic  life  reaches 
one-ninth  as  far  as  the  kingly.  But  this  measurement 
docs  not  give  us  the  full  extent  of  the  difference1.  We 
must  measure  the  difference  in  three  dimensions,  de- 
veloping the  line  into  the  square,  and  the  square  into 
the  cube,  which  is  a  complete  and  perfect  thing.  The 
result  is  that  the  bliss  of  the  philosopher  king  is  9  x  9  x  9 
=  729  times  as  full  as  that  of  the  tyrant. 
588  a  to  Socrates  is  now  made  to  look  back  to  the  beginning 

of  the  whole  argument  and  the  contention  of  Thrasy- 

1  [In  the  triple  division  of  the  soul,  and  again  in  that  of  the  appetitive 
element,  the  three  parts  were  not  each  of  equal  value  in  the  life  of  the 
soul  which  is  what  the  calculation  if  it  stopped  here  would  imply. — Ed.] 


I  n<l  (it    IX. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  333 

machus  that  perfect  injustice  is  the  true  interest  of  man. 
He  will  express  the  main  facts  which  he  has  shown 
about  the  life  of  man  in  a  figure  which  will  make  it 
clear  how  far  injustice  is  from  being  man's  interest. 
The  general  drift  of  this  section  is  to  throw  the  whole 
question  of  interest  back  upon  the  inner  life  of  the  soul ; 
happiness,  interest,  gain,  must  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
man's  most  inward  life,  or  seen  in  their  relation  to  the 
essence  of  his  soul.  '  What  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  soul  ? '  is  the  burden  of  the  section ;  '  we  have 
talked  of  gain  or  profit — what  is  the  ultimately  precious 
thing  (tijaiov)  ?  ' 

First  (588  B  to  e)  Plato  repeats  his  analysis  of  human 
nature.  Man,  while  he  is  indeed  not  only  one  in  his 
bodily  form,  but  one  self  or  soul,  is  at  the  same  time 
a  complex  creature  1.  A  new  light  is  here  thrown  on  the 
elements  of  which  he  is  composed.  The  appetitive 
element  is  represented  as  a  many-headed  beast,  con- 
stantly changing  and  capable  of  an  infinite  development 
of  new  heads  out  of  itself;  this  beast  is  partly  wild  and 
partly  tame ;  it  is,  in  bulk,  the  largest  element  in  human 
nature.  The  '  spirited '  element  is  represented  as  a  lion. 
It  was  no  mere  figure  of  speech  with  Plato  to  represent 
these  psychical  tendencies  in  man  as  animals,  for  he 
clearly  believed  that  there  was  continuity  between  the 
different  forms  in  which  life  appears ;  that  somehow  or 
other  souls  rose  and  fell  in  the  scale  of  being  according 
as  they  behaved  in  each  form  in  which  they  were 
embodied  ;  and  that  there  was  a  real  identity  between 
certain  elements  in  man's  soul  and  certain  elements  in 
other  organic   creatures.     Such  an  idea  receives  a  new 

1  For  the  idea  of  man  as  a  strangely  composite  being,  cf.  Phacdrus, 
229  E  sq. 


334         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

light  from  the  modern  conception  of  evolution.  The 
third  element  in  human  nature,  and  in  bulk  the  smallest, 
is  the  strictly  human  element,  the  man  in  us.  This 
element  is  also  represented  as  the  divine  in  man1.  This 
again,  though  not  much  is  here  made  of  it,  is  a  very  im- 
portant idea  for  consideration  in  a  theory  of  human  nature. 
Both  Plato  and  Aristotle  thought  that  there  was  in 
human  nature  a  certain  imperfect  presence  of  God,  and 
that  it  was  this  divine  presence,  however  small,  which 
made  it  specifically  human  nature2.  It  is  in  this 
conception  that  the  true  anticipations  of  such  Christian 
ideas  as  that  of  the  Incarnation — 'taking  the  man- 
hood into  God' — are  to  be  found.  Plato  here  literally 
identifies  the  truly  human  nature  in  us  with  the  divine. 
But  the  ideas  are  not  developed  in  Plato  and  Aristotle. 

Such  then  is  man.  The  question  of  his  true  gain  and 
profit  has  to  be  considered  on  the  basis  of  this  analysis. 
When  a  man  says  that  injustice  secures  the  real  interest 
of  human  nature,  he  cannot  realize  what  he  is  saying ; 
let  us  persuade  him.  To  do  so,  Plato  takes  the  principal 
recognized  forms  of  moral  goodness  and  badness,  and 
shows  what  each  means  in  terms  of  his  analysis  of  human 
nature  (588  E  to  590  d).  The  just  and  the  noble  (koAoV) 
are  what  brings  everything  in  human  nature  under  the  rule 
of  the  truly  human  element  in  it.  which  is  also  the  truly 
divine.  The  unjust  and  the  base  {auryjpov)  arc  what 
enslaves  the  man  in  us  to  the  beast.  When  a  man  says 
that  it  pays  or  profits  him  to  do  a  base  action,  such  as 
taking  a  bribe,  he  is  really  saying  that  he  gains  by  en- 
slaving what  is  more  precious  to  him  than  wife  or  child 
to  the  most  godless  thing  in  him.  'Intemperance'  or 
profligacy,  again  (ro  u.Ko\a<TTaiveiv,  the  opposite  of  crwcfypo- 

1  589  n.  '  Aristotle,  Eth.  A'i  .  X.  vii.  i,  and  7  to  9. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  335 

a-vvT}),  means  the  letting  loose  of  the  wild  creature  within 
us.  Self-will  (avdabeLa)  and  discontent  or  irritability 
(bva-KoXia)  arise  from  the  lion-like  element  being  developed 
in  bad  adjustment  to  its  place  in  our  nature.  Both 
'  spirit '  and  '  appetite '  are  however  involved  in  them  * ; 
in  the  description  of  the  timocratic  man  in  whom  '  spirit ' 
is  dominant,  and  who  is  then  said  to  be  '  self-willed,'  we 
were  shown  how  under  the  dominion  of '  spirit '  certain 
excessive  appetites  were  growing  up  in  the  dark,  because 
the  highest  element  in  man  had  been  dethroned  from  its 
place.  Next,  the  vices  of  effeminacy,  luxury,  and  the 
like  come  from  the  weakening  of  the  '  spirited  '  element 
in  us.  Flattery  and  meanness  imply  that  it  is  being 
enslaved  to  the  mob  of  appetites,  and  that  in  consequence 
the  lion  in  us  is  being  turned  into  an  ape 2.  Lastly  come 
fiavavaCa  and  \Hponyvia.  These  words,  which  signify 
a  sort  of  vulgarity  which  was  associated  with  certain 
occupations,  may  be  compared  with  the  word  •mechanic' 
as  used  in  a  depreciatory  sense  in  Shakespeare.  The 
Greeks  thought  that  mechanical  occupations  had  a 
tendency,  not  necessarily  fulfilled  in  every  case,  to 
develop  this  fault ;  as  indeed  every  nation  stigmatizes 
certain  occupations,  and  uses  words  derived  from  them, 
e.  g.  '  flunkeyism,'  to  describe  certain  vices.     The  vices 

1  Especially  if  we  read  XeovruiSes  re  kol  ux^&Ses  (turbulent^,  the  latter 
being  'appetite.'  The  MSS.  read  KeovruiSes  re  kcil  o</>ta>5es  ;  the  latter 
(serpent-like)  would  be  a  new  name  for  the  '  spirited'  element.  But  utfxwSes, 
which  is  a  strangely  formed  word  and  does  not  occur  elsewhere  except 
in  late  writers  who  might  have  derived  it  from  this  passage  after  it  had 
been  corrupted"),  is  very  likely  a  mistake  for  ux^&Sts,  which  occurs  just 
below  as  a  designation  of  the  appetitive  element.  If  however  we  read 
6<ptw5(s,  the  introduction  of  this  new  term  still  implies  that  the  '  lion-like  ' 
element  is  to  some  degree  identifying  itself  with  the  nvKvaSis  Opeftfia. 

2  Cf.  X.  620  c,  where  the  soul  of  Thersites  is  ,at  his  own  choice )  turned 
into  an  ape. 


336         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

named  here  really  mean  that  the  truly  human  element 
is  in  some  degree  enslaved  to  the  appetitive. 

Thus,  in  brief,  Plato  has  indicated  the  nature  of  various 
sorts  of  vice.  They  are  all  of  them  forms  of  disorgani- 
zation of  the  soul,  all  of  them  forms  of  slavery.  The 
question  for  man  (590  D  to  591  b)  is,  What  is  the  right 
slavery — the  slavery  which  is  not  to  the  hurt  of  the 
slave  ?  It  is  that  he  should  be  the  slave  of  that  in  him 
which  is  most  fit  to  rule.  Everything  in  man  should 
serve  what  is  divine  in  him.  It  is  best  of  all  that  he 
should  have  the  ruling  principle  in  himself;  but,  if  he 
has  it  not,  the  next  best  is  that  he  should  obey  it  as 
imposed  on  him  from  without.  This  shows  us  the 
principle  upon  which  both  the  law  in  states  and  the 
education  of  children  are  based  l.  Law  was  represented 
at  the  outset  by  Glaucon  as  a  restraint  which  a  reasonable 
man  would  overcome  or  evade  wherever  he  was  able  to 
do  so.  But  law  is  the  public  reason  embodied,  the  ally 
of  everybody  in  the  community  without  distinction, 
because  the  ally  of  that  which  is  best  in  him.  On 
the  same  principle  we  do  not  allow  children  to  be  their 
own  masters  until,  by  education,  we  have  set  up  a  '  con- 
stitution' in  them  and  enabled  them  to  be  to  some 
extent  a  law  to  themselves.  In  moral  education,  the 
principle  which  is  at  first  imposed  on  the  learner  from 
without  gradually  becomes  his  own  principle.  This, 
which  parents  and  teachers  aim  at  accomplishing  for 
children,  the  law  also  aims  at  accomplishing  for  every 
member  of  the  community. 

Human  nature  then  being  what  it  is,  it  is  impossible 
that  it  can  'profit'  a  man  to  be  unjust.  Nor  will  his 
injustice  profit  him  any  the  more  for  being  undetected 
1  Cf.  Aristotle,  Elh.  Nk.  X.  ix. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  337 

and  unpunished  by  the  law.  Thrasymachus  has  main- 
tained that  if  a  man  could  do  any  wrong  he  pleased  and 
escape  punishment  he  would  be  prosperous  ;  here  it  is 
asserted  that  the  greatest  ill  that  can  befall  a  man  is 
that  he  should  do  wrong  and  escape  punishment l. 

In  conclusion  (591  C  to  end  of  IX)  Plato  sums  up  the 
principles  upon  which  a  wise  man  will  regulate  his  life. 
First,  as  to  what  he  will  wish__to_learn :  he  \Vill  value 
every  study  in  proportion  as  it  helps  to  bring  the  soul 
into  that  good  state  which  has  here  been  described 2. 
Next  as  regards  his  body;  he  will  not  make  the  domi- 
nant principle  in  his  life  the  attainment  of  simply  animal 
pleasures,  neither  will  he  make  it  the  attainment  simply 
of  bodily  health  and  strength,  for  he  will  value  health 
and  strength  of  body  according  as  they  promote  the 
control  of  reason  within  him  (o-uxppoo-vvri).  He  will 
regulate  the  harmony  of  his  body  for  the  sake  of  the 
harmony  of  his  soul,  if  he  wishes  to  be  really  [jlovo-lkos  3 ; 
the  phrase  is  like  the  saying  of  Milton,  that  the  true  poet 
must  make  his  life  a  poem.  Similarly  with  wealth  ;  he 
will  regulate  his  acquisition  of  wealth  by  asking  whether 
it  does  or  does  not  put  the  '  constitution '  within  him  out 
of  gear.  So  lastly,  as  to  honour  and  power,  he  will  or 
will  not  seek  them  according  as  he  conceives  that  they 
will  or  will  not  make  him  better. 

Here  follows  a  curious  passage  :  the  mention  of  honour 
makes  Glaucon  say,'  Then  he  will  not  take  part  in  public 
life,'  and  Socrates  answers,  '  Indeed  he  will  in  his  own 
city,  but  perhaps  not  in  the  city  where  he  was  born,  unless 

1  Cf.  Gorgias,  472  D  sqq. 

2  i.e.  He  will  regard  the  object  of  all  study  as  intended  to  give  the 
philosophic  or  divine  element  in  the  soul  the  nurture  necessary  for  its 
development. 

3  Cf.  410  and  411. 

VOL.  II.  Z 


338         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

some  divine  chance  befalls.'  In  Book  VI !  Plato  says  it 
is  only  by  divine  grace,  that  is  by  some  process  which, 
humanly  speaking,  cannot  be  reckoned  on,  that  a  great 
character  can  escape  demoralization  in  present  society. 
In  a  similar  spirit  he  says  here  that  it  will  only  be  as  an 
exception  that  a  man  who  has  attained  harmony  of  the 
soul  will  find  public  life  congenial  to  him  or  compatible 
with  it ;  only  under  exceptional  circumstances  will  the 
'  goodness  of  the  man  '  and  the  '  goodness  of  the  citizen  ' 
coincide2.  But  such  a  man  will  carry  about  the  ideal 
state  with  him  and  live  the  life  of  it ;  whether  it  exists 
anywhere  on  earth  (or  even  in  heaven)  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  that.  Plato  in  the  Republic  oscillates  between 
two  conflicting  feelings.  His  dominant  feeling  is  that 
the  philosopher  does  neither  the  best  for  himself  nor  the 
best  for  the  world  unless  he  finds  a  state  in  which  he  can 
play  the  part  he  is  fit  for  (irpocnjKovaa  7roAire'a).  The 
loss  which  results  in  every  direction  from  the  highest 
minds  not  being  applied  to  the  government  of  society 
forces  itself  upon  him  as  an  appalling  loss.  But  another 
feeling  runs  under  this  and  emerges  from  time  to  time 
in  passages  like  the  present.  It  is  that,  as  the  world 
stands,  the  divorce  between  the  philosopher  and  political 
affairs  is,  humanly  speaking,  inevitable,  and  that  the  highest 
life  for  man  will  generally  have  to  be  not  a  public  life. 
In  describing  the  philosophic  life  in  the  T/icactcfns* 
Plato  almost  glories  in  the  fact  that,  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  it  is  of  no  use.  We  find  precisely  the  same  two 
ideas  struggling  in  many  Christian  writers.     The  saving 

1   492  A.     Cf.  493  A,  499  C. 

1  Cf.  Aristotle,  IJul.  1276  It,  16  sqq.,  1278  A,  41  sq.,  and  also  1324  a,  4  to 

'325>!>  3°- 
'   173  c  sqq. 


THE    JUST    AND    THE    UNJUST    LIFE  339 

of  one's  soul  has  often  been  represented  as  inconsistent 
with  '  living  in  the  world.'  This  mode  of  thought  was 
fairly  well  known  in  Greece  even  before  Plato's  time ; 
both  before  his  time  and  later  there  were  philosophers 
who  lived,  in  retirement,  a  sort  of  monastic  and  ascetic 
life.  On  the  other  hand  we  are  familiar  with  the  view 
that  the  Christian  principle  is  best  realized  in  some 
kind  of  public  service,  or  in  doing  good  in  some  sort  of 
social  life.  This  idea  is  no  doubt  that  which  is  most 
prominent  in  Greek  philosophy,  and  represents  the 
ultimate  outcome  of  Greek  moral  thought  in  its  best 
form. 


Z  2 


XV.    DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY 

[Republic,  X.  to  608  B.] 

The  first  half  of  Book  X  is  disconnected  from  the  rest 
of  the  Republic,  and  the  transition  to  the  subject  of  art 
and  poetry,  which  is  here  made,  is  sudden  and  unnatural. 
We  may,  indeed,  gather  from  the  opening  sentences 
what  is  the  connexion  of  ideas  in  Plato's  mind.  The 
latter  part  of  Book  IX  has  brought  vividly  before  us, 
by  a  fresh  analysis,  what  human  nature  really  is ;  moral 
evil  has  been  described  as  the  surrender  of  the  self  to 
the  inferior  elements  in  it :  and  this  has  been  constantly 
represented  as  the  submission  of  the  mind  to  living  in 
a  kind  of  illusory  world.  This  perhaps  suggests  the  real 
nature  of  the  danger  of  imitative  art,  which  has  been 
pointed  out  to  some  extent  already.  It  tends  to  stimu- 
late the  illusorincss  of  feeling  ;  above  all  it  panders  to 
an  inferior  kind  of  emotion,  whether  of  pleasure  or  of 
pain  ;  and  Plato's  peculiar  way  of  describing  the  infe- 
riority of  an  emotion  is  to  show  that  it  is  illusory,  depen- 
dent on  something  unreal.  So  much  connexion,  then, 
is  traceable.  Still  this  section  breaks  the  continuity 
of  the  Republic.  It  does  not  bear  in  any  way  on  the 
last   section    of  Book    X,   in   which  the  immortality  of 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  341 

the  soul  is  treated,  and  which  would  naturally  follow 
at  the  end  of  Book  IX,  forming  a  fitting  conclusion 
to  the  whole  work.  Further,  within  each  of  these  two 
sections  it  is  easy  to  see  the  traces  of  more  than  one 
redaction  of  the  same  topic  *. 

From  the  very  apologetic  opening  and  the  neverthe- 
less polemical  tone  which  pervades  the  whole  discussion, 
one  might  infer  that  Plato  had  been  attacked  by  critics 
for  what  he  had  previously  said  about  poetry,  and  that 
he  therefore  returned  to  the  subject  with  greater  animus, 
prepared  to  go  a  good  deal  further.  In  any  case  he 
writes  throughout  with  a  deep  feeling  that  the  influence 
of  the  poetry  of  his  time,  especially  the  dramatic  poetry, 
is  almost  entirely  bad,  and  that  the  extravagant  belief 
which  prevails  in  the  educational  value  of  Homer  and 
other  poets  is  unjustifiable  and  pernicious.  He  tells  us 
that  it  was  claimed  for  Homer  and  the  tragic  poets  that 
they  knew  all  arts,  all  things  human,  whether  bearing 
on  virtue  or  vice,  and  even  things  divine,  and  again 
that  it  was  said  that  Homer  was  the  educator  of  Greece, 
and  that  a  man  might  direct  his  whole  life  by  what  he 
learnt  from  him2.  To  us  Homer  is  mere  literature  ;  no 
one  regulates  his  life  according  to  Homer ;  but  we  must 
take  these  statements  as  representing  facts,  or  we  cannot 
understand  Plato's  attitude.  He  treats  the  matter  as  in 
the  utmost  degree  a  serious  one.  People  sometimes  say 
that  Homer  was  the  Greek  Bible,  and  this  expresses 
in  a  crude  way  what  Plato  is  here  referring  to. 
Extravagant  and  illogical  claims  made  for  the  Bible 
have  produced  similar  attacks  upon  it. 

1  See,  for  example,  the  passages  referred  to  in  a  note  on  p.  349,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  next  section  of  the  Lectures. 
'  598  D  sq.  and  606  E. 


342         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

Plato  here  treats  poetry  as  a  great  means  of  tickling 
the  palate  of  the  Athenian  demos ;  it  is  a  mere  caterer 
of  excitement.  We  must  take  what  he  says  in  connexion 
with  various  other  passages  in  his  dialogues,  where  the 
power  of  words  to  produce  illusion  is  dwelt  upon.  There 
has  never  been  a  greater  master  of  words  than  Plato 
himself,  and  it  seems  as  if  this  made  him  all  the  more 
conscious  that  the  art  of  using  language  is  beset  with 
weaknesses  and  dangers.  Thus,  as  he  insists  in  the 
Phaedrusx,  the  written  word,  whether  rhetoric  or  poetry 
or  what  not,  is  only  valuable  as  a  sort  of  record  and 
suggestion  of  the  '  living  word,'  which  is  the  truth  that 
the  writer  has  present  to  his  mind  ;  unless  a  writer  can 
feel  that  he  knows  something  better  than  he  writes,  he  is 
not  really  a  good  writer ;  and  as  soon  as  he  begins  to 
think  that  words  are  the  best  thing  he  ceases  to  under- 
stand them2.  (The  antithesis  of  'letter'  and  'spirit' 
embodies  the  same  idea.)  In  his  own  time,  Plato  felt, 
literature  was  written  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  that 
the  mere  words  gave.  Thus  in  the  Gorgias  poetry, 
especially  tragic  poetry,  is  classed  with  rhetoric  as 
a  branch  of  the  art  of  appealing  to  and  pleasing  the 
crowd  ;  and  it  is  associated  with  the  arts  of  the  confec- 
tioner and  the  perfumer3.  Various  passages  in  the  Laws 
too  describe  bitterly  the  change  that  has  come  over  the 
Athenian  stage ;  in  the  old  days  the  audience  were 
swayed  by  people  who  knew  better  than  they ;  at  present 
there  is  a  '  thcatrocracy,'  the  taste  of  the  general  public 
is  a  law  to  the  dramatist  '. 

1  [Of  which  dialogue,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  a  large  part  is  an  exhibition 
(given  for  a  special  purpose)  of  Plato's  mastery  of  various  styles  of  com- 
position.— Ed.] 

*  275  C  to  end.  3   Gorgias,  501  and  502. 

4  Laws,  III,  701  a. 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  343 

There  are  two  leading  ideas  in  this  attack  on  art  and 
poetry.  First,  there  is  the  idea  that  imitative  art  from 
its  very  nature  can  only  represent  what  things  look  like, 
their  outsides,  which  are  a  very  little  part  of  them  ;  and 
that  if  any  one  takes  the  outsides  of  things  for  the  whole 
of  them — as,  it  is  implied,  a  great  many  people  do — 
then  he  is  living  in  a  world  of  illusion.  Secondly,  there 
is  the  feeling  that  the  emotions  generally  appealed  to 
and  stimulated  by  contemporary  art,  and  especially 
by  dramatic  poetry,  are  not  those  which  are  worth 
appealing  to  and  stimulating.  The  whole  treatment 
of  the  subject  presents  us  with  the  reverse  side  of  the 
picture  of  art  given  by  Aristotle  in  the  Poetics.  The 
two  works  do  not  deal  with  the  subject  from  the  same 
point  of  view.  Plato  has  set  himself  to  write  an  indict- 
ment of  art.  He  deals  with  its  perversions,  and  what 
he  says  of  them  is  to  a  great  extent  true,  though  no 
doubt  he  accounts  for  the  bad  effects  of  art  by  a  theory 
which  makes  it  look,  at  any  rate,  as  if  they  necessarily 
followed  from  the  nature  of  imitative  art,  and  not  merely 
from  perversions  of  it.  Aristotle's  treatise,  on  the  con- 
trary (so  far  as  it  refers  to  the  same  subject),  may  be 
said  to  aim  at  a  definition  of  tragedy  as  it  is  in  its 
essence  and  at  its  best.  It  is  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  him  whether  there  ever  was  a  tragedy  answering 
to  his  definition,  he  wants  to  get  at  the  typical  or  ideal 
nature  of  tragedy.  The  situations  of  the  two  men, 
according  to  ordinary  conceptions  of  their  characters,  are 
here  reversed  ;  Aristotle  puts  the  ideal  side  of  things, 
while  Plato  writes  like  a  controversialist  concerned  only 
with  present  facts. 

The  discussion  falls  into  three  parts;  in  the  first, 
Plato  investigates  the  nature  of  the  'imitation'  which 


6o2C. 


344  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

constitutes  art,  characterizing  objectively  the  nature  of 
art  (595  C  to  602  c) ;  in  the  second  and  third  he  really 
puts  the  same  thing  from  the  other  side,  dealing,  in  two 
separate  sections  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  differ  in 
subject,  with  the  subjective  effects  of  imitative  art  upon 
the  soul  (602  C  to  605  c.  and  605  c  to  6c8  b). 
595  c  to  In  the  first  section  of  the  argument  Plato  starts  with 

the  implied  postulate  that  art  is  imitation  (ju^o-is) ;  he 
first  explains  his  theory  of  the  nature  of  art  by  taking 
the  illustration  of  painting  ;  he  then  applies  the  result  to 
poetry. 

What  does  he  mean  by  saying  that  art  is  imitation  ? 
A  modern  writer  in  calling  art  imitative  would  probably 
have  in  mind  the  question  whether  the  artist  copies  from 
his  experience,  or  creates.  It  is  clear  in  what  Plato  says, 
and  in  a  great  part  of  what  Aristotle  says,  that  this  is 
not  what  they  had  in  mind.  Plato  does  not  consider 
whether  the  artist  originates ;  he  is  thinking  of  the 
extremely  obvious  fact  that  the  artist  does  not  in  any 
case  put  before  us  the  actual  objects  of  real  life,  but 
certain  appearances  only  ;  he  represents,  and  only  re- 
presents. In  this,  poetry  and  painting,  though  very 
different  in  most  respects,  stand  on  the  same  footing.  It 
is  obvious  that  the  painter  represents  things  to  us  in 
colours  merely  as  they  appear  from  a  certain  point  of 
view.  The  poet  uses  words,  as  Plato  says,  '  like  paint '  ; 
his  words  arc  no  more  what  they  describe  than  painted 
colours  are  what  they  represent  ;  the  pout,  no  less  than 
the  painter,  presents  to  us  what  things  look  like  from 
;i  partial  point  of  view. 

Imitation,  which  both  the  painter  and  the  poet 
exercise,  is  a  certain  kind  of  production  or  making 
(WTjrriy) ;    but   what    kind  ?     According    to  Plato   there 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  345 

are  three  grades  of  making  and  three  corresponding 
makers  to  be  distinguished.  There  is,  first,  the  making 
of  that  which  is  in  the  order  of  nature  (to  ev  ti}  <£wa, 
o  IcrTt,  to  6v,  to  elhos,  fj  Ihia),  of  which  the  only  maker 
is  God,  who  is  therefore  called  the  maker  of  the  original 
or  natural  ((f>vTovpyos).  Secondly,  there  are  the  ordinary 
artificial  things  used  in  life,  which  are  made  by  the 
craftsman  or  artisan ;  he  makes,  Plato  tells  us,  some- 
thing like  that  which  God  makes  (tolovtov  olov  to  6v), 
a  particular  form l  of  the  thing  God  is  maker  of. 
Thirdly,  there  is  a  product  which  consists  in  the 
appearance  of  such  things  (particular  concrete  objects) 
as  the  artisan  makes,  and  the  maker  of  this  product 
is  the  artist,  who  makes  the  appearance  as  a  man 
might  make  it  by  holding  up  a  mirror  before  a  thing. 
We  see  at  once  that  this  is  not  a  true  account  of  artistic 
production  ;  yet  the  artist's  production  and  the  reflexion 
in  a  mirror  are  so  far  alike  that  they  both  represent  only 
partial  aspects  of  things.  The  artist,  according  to  Plato, 
merely  holds  up  the  mirror  to  nature,  and  does  nothing 
more. 

What  does  Plato  mean  by  'that  which  is  in  the  order 
of  nature,'  and  the  various  phrases  he  uses  as  equivalent  to 
this  ?  He  takes  an  instance  which  it  is  very  difficult 
to  make  sense  of.  What  meaning  is  there  in  speaking 
of  the  '  idea '  of  a  table  or  of  a  bed  ;  of  a  table  as  it  is  in 
nature ;  of  a  table  in  a  sense  in  which  there  is  one  table 
and  no  more ;  of  a  table  which  is  really  a  table,  while 
the  things  we  call  tables  are  not  ?  To  get  at  the  mean- 
ing of  Plato's  language,  we  may  start  by  asking  what  we 
imply  when  we  say  that  of  two  or  more  quite  different 

1  [Not,  of  course,  '  form  '  in  the  sense  of  tidos  or  idea  as  above. — Ed.] 


346         LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC  ' 

tables  each  is  a  form  or  example  of  table.  We  clearly 
imply  that  there  is  something  in  them  which  is  the  same 
and  therefore  one.  In  the  fact  that  they  are  many  and 
different  forms  of  the  one  thing  after  which  they  are 
called,  Plato  sees  this  consequence  involved  :  each  is 
meant  to  be  what  it  is  called,  but  no  one  of  them  is  really 
quite  what  it  is  called  or  what  it  is  meant  to  be.  And 
it  is  true  that  they  are  not  quite  what  they  are  meant 
to  be,  nor  (it  may  be  said)  what  they  are  called.  Every 
table  has  limitations ;  to  begin  with,  it  perishes  ;  but, 
besides  that,  it  never  absolulely  answers  its  purpose, 
we  can  always  find  some  defect  in  it,  and  at  any  rate  it 
only  serves  its  purpose  under  certain  conditions.  This 
then  is  the  import  of  the  particularity  of  tables  ;  they  all 
purport  to  be  the  same  thing,  namely,  that  which  they 
are  really  meant  to  be,  but  none  of  them  is  that  thing. 

The  meaning  of  the  conception  is  much  more  obvious 
in  the  case  of  things  to  which  we  apply  the  notions  of  an 
ideal,  or  of  perfection.  For  instance,  there  are  many 
just  acts,  many  forms  of  justice,  each  of  which  is  only 
partially  what  we  call  it;  and  we  easily  understand  such 
a  conception  as  'justice  itself,'  the  one  principle  which 
all  just  acts  imperfectly  embody.  Plato  applies  the 
same  conception  to  tables  and  beds  in  a  way  that  sounds 
harsh  and  ludicrous.  In  the  ordinary  sense,  as  we  should 
at  once  say,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  this  one  table  that 
he  talks  about.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  truth  about  the 
construction  of  tables,  and  the  truth  of  everything  must 
be  supposed  to  exist  eternally.  We  may  think  of  this 
truth,  or  of  the  'true  table'  in  this  sense,  as  existing  in 
what  we  might  call  an  ideal  order  of  the  world  (what 
Plato  here  calls  e/)iW),  which  we  imperfectly  apprehend 
and  reproduce,  or  as  existing  in  the  mind  of  the  Creator  ; 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  347 

Plato  would  probably  say  that  these  were  only  different 
ways  of  putting  the  same  thing  l. 

This  distinction  of  three  things — the  nature  of  tables, 
which  is  made  not  by  the  craftsman  but  by  the  Creator, 
the  actual  table  which  the  craftsman  makes,  and  the 
copy  of  a  table  which  the  artist  makes — leads  up  to 
a  comparison  (601  c  sqq.)  of  the  knowledge  that  the 
artist  must  possess  of  a  thing  to  copy  it  successfully, 
and  the  knowledge  that  other  men  may  possess  of  the 
same  thing.  The  man  for  whom  the  craftsman  makes 
any  instrument,  and  who  knows  how  to  use  it,  knows 
most  about  its  nature  and  what  it  should  be  like ;  the 
horseman,  for  instance,  knows  what  harness  should  be ; 
this  is  not  the  kind  of  knowledge  the  artist  has  of  harness, 
or  tables,  or  beds,  or  any  object  that  he  may  imitate. 
The  craftsman  who  is  not  himself  the  user  of  what  he 
makes  has  not  this  knowledge  either ;  but  he  has 
a  certain  right  opinion  (opdrj  ho£a)  about  the  thing  he 
makes,  he  can  carry  out  the  directions  of  the  man  for 
whom  he  makes  it.  The  knowledge  of  the  artist  who 
can  only  produce  the  superficial  resemblance  of  the 
thing  is  clearly  much  less  than  this.  It  corresponds, 
though  the  word  is  not  used  here,  to  the  '  conjecture ' 
(ductaia)  of  Book  VI,  and  this  passage  throws  a  light 
on  the  four-fold  division  of  knowledge  in  that  Book. 
The  conclusion  drawn  from  this  comparison  is  that  what 
the  artist  does  is  not  earnest  but  play ;  and  this  con- 
clusion is  applied  to  all  artistic  or  poetic  imitation  ;  if  we 

1  Nothing  is  said  here  about  the  manifold  particular  objects,  not  made 
by  human  craftsmen,  which  make  up  the  sensible  world  ;  but,  as  here  the 
craftsman  makes  artificial  objects  after  a  pattern  which  is  represented 
as  existing  eternally,  so  in  the  Timaeus  the  whole  sensible  world  is 
represented  as  being  the  expression  to  sense  of  an  eternal  intelligible 
■napadei-yfjia.     Cf.   Timaeus,  28 esq. 


348         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

take  such  imitation  seriously  we  are  making  ourselves 
the  victims  of  illusion. 

How  far  such  a  description  of  the  work  of  artists  and 
poets  is  justified  depends  first  on  the  particular  artist 
or  poet  in  question,  on  his  own  conception  of  his 
functions,  and  on  the  way  in  which  he  carries  it  out ; 
it  depends,  secondly,  on  the  attitude  of  those  who  see 
or  read  his  works.  Plato  here  has  in  the  main  great 
poets  and  artists  in  view.  Even  in  the  case  of  the 
greatest  poet  he  is  prepared  to  maintain  that  his  work 
is  not  the  highest  kind  of  work ;  if  he  had  done  the 
things  he  relates  he  would  have  been  a  greater  man. 
The  comparative  value  of  poetic  or  artistic  work  and  of 
other  kinds  of  work  is  an  unprofitable  question  to  discuss. 
It  is  certain  that  poets  and  artists  perform  a  great 
function,  and  that  the  great  poets  and  artists  have  done 
a  great  service  to  mankind.  But  it  is  also  true  that  they 
are  constantly  misunderstood  by  their  admirers,  that 
poetry  and  art  are  often  taken  as  if  they  were  something 
which  they  arc  not,  and  that  claims  are  made  for  them 
which  fairly  provoke  the  sort  of  reaction  that  we  find 
here,  where  Plato  describes  them  as  mere  play.  He 
clearly  has  in  mind  people  who  fancy  that  merely  to 
read  literature  and  gather  impressions  of  life  from  it  is 
enough  to  give  one  an  understanding  of  life.  Such 
persons  arc  as  much  under  an  illusion  as  if  they 
were  taken  in  by  clever  scene-painting.  Doubtless  only 
a  childish  or  untrained  mind  can  be  so  taken  in1 ;  but 
language  is  a  far  subtler  thing  than  colour  and  form, 
and,  in  reading  things  which  strongly  affect  us,  we  arc 
liable  to  suppose  that  the  fact  of  being  strongly  affected 

1  And  wc  are  not  to  suppose  that  any  great  painter  or  other  artist 
makes  illusion  his  object. 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  349 

by  the  representation  gives  us  a  grasp  of  the  thing 
represented.  The  question  whether  a  poet  adds  some- 
thing to  your  understanding  of  the  world,  or  gives  you 
nothing  but  the  mere  pleasure  of  representation  and 
expression,  really  depends  on  your  understanding  of  the 
poet.  Having  in  mind  people  who  imagine  that  the  mere 
enjoyment  of  poetry  is  something  more  than  it  is,  Plato 
contends  that  the  presentation  of  life  in  literature  gets  hold 
of  a  very  small  part  of  it.  The  condemnation  he  passes  on 
imaginative  literature  is  valid  as  against  a  certain  misunder- 
standing of  its  true  function.  But  the  point  of  view  from 
which  imaginative  literature  could  be  looked  upon  as  con- 
taining the  whole  reality  of  life,  and  from  which  Plato 
answers  that  it  gives  one  merely  the  most  superficial 
appearance,  is  not  one  which  comes  very  naturally  to  us. 

The  two  sections  which  follow  are  slightly  different 
treatments  of  one  question l :  Imaginative  art  being, 
as  it  has  just  been  described,  the  production  of  mere 
superficial  appearance,  what  is  its  effect  on  the  soul ; 
what  is  it  that  it  appeals  to  in  the  soul,  and  what  is  the 
result  upon  the  soul  of  its  so  appealing  ? 

In  the  former  of  these  sections  Plato  again  begins  602  c  to 
with  painting,  imitation  which  appeals  to  the  eye,  and  6°5C- 
applies  the  analogy  of  it  to  poetry.  The  success  of 
painting,  he  points  out,  depends  upon  its  exercising 
a  certain  illusion,  making  us,  by  means  of  ingenious 
devices,  think  of  a  certain  object  as  being  in  three 
dimensions  when  it  is  really  in  two2.     It  follows  from 

1  The  opening  words  of  the  section  beginning  605  C  do  not  naturally 
follow  on  the  words  which  precede  (there  is  nothing  for  aiirfji  to  refer 
to),  but  they  would  naturally  follow  on  the  concluding  words  of  the 
section  which  ends  at  602  B. 

2  He  illustrates  this  by  referring  to  reflexions  in  water  and  the  like, 
which  were  his  examples  of  '  tiicac'ia  '  in  Book  VI. 


350         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

this  that,  for  painting  to  exercise  its  influence,  reason 
(by  which  he  means  the  scientific  impulse,  which  leads 
us  to  set  right  all  the  illusions  of  sense  by  measuring 
and  weighing  things,  and  the  like)  must  be  in  abeyance. 
As  painting  takes  advantage  of  certain  illusions  of  sight, 
so  poetry  takes  advantage  of  certain  illusions  of  feeling 
and  emotion  ;  and  as,  in  the  case  of  painting,  reason  is  for 
the  time  being  kept  in  abeyance  by  mere  appearance,  so, 
for  poetry  to  have  its  effect,  the  feeling  of  the  moment 
must  blind  us  to  some  facts.  Take,  for  example,  the  case 
when  poetry  makes  us  feel  keenly  about  what  we  should 
call  a  great  misfortune.  When  we  think  about  it  we  see 
that  we  do  not  know  whether  what  gives  us  pain  is  really 
an  evil  or  not,  we  see  again  that  grieving  over  it  does  no 
good,  and  (Plato  says)  that  nothing  human  is  worthy 
of  grave  consideration.  These  facts  are  analogous  to 
those  which  reason  tells  us  when  we  test  the  data  of 
sight  by  measurement  and  calculation ;  and  as  in  enjoy- 
ing a  painting  we  are  made  to  occupy  ourselves  with  the 
simple  appearance  of  things  from  a  single  point  of  view, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  facts  of  which  reason  would 
inform  us,  so  it  is  when  we  enter  into  the  feeling  of 
poetry.  Poetry  makes  the  emotion  of  the  moment 
exercise  a  sort  of  illusion  over  us.  Further,  Plato  dwells 
upon  the  fact  that  under  the  influence  of  a  tragedy,  and 
similar  influences,  a  man  allows  himself  to  enter  into 
emotions  which  he  would  be  ashamed  to  give  way  to 
in  real  life.  Moreover,  he  points  out  that  the  subject- 
matter  which  best  lends  itself  to  effective  representa- 
tion in  poetry  is  indiscriminate  variety  of  feeling  and 
emotion,  not  feeling  and  emotion  restrained  by  a  prin- 
ciple. The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  all  this  is 
that    imitative    poetry    nourishes    and    strengthens,    not 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  351 

the    rational   part    of  the  soul,  but  that   which  is   the 
source  of  illusion. 

The  main  subject  of  the  latter  section  of  the  discussion  605  c  to 
is  one  which  Plato  has  glanced  at  immediately  before,  ° 
namely,  the  encouragement  given  to  unworthy  emotions 
by  hearing  or  reading  emotional  poetry.  This  effect,  he 
shows,  is  produced  not  only  by  tragedy  but  by  comedy, 
and  by  artistic  representation  generally.  It  appeals 
to  the  appetitive  side  of  our  nature,  letting  loose  the 
emotional  element  in  us,  while  keeping  in  abeyance 
reason,  which  should  restrain  appetite.  If  then  we 
allow  the  Muse  of  sweetness  to  prevail  in  our  city,  we 
shall  be  governed  by  pleasure  and  pain,  and  not  by 
principles  and  by  regard  for  the  common  good.  Poetry, 
then,  in  the  ideal  community  must  be  bound  within  very 
narrow  limits.  Religion  and  patriotism  are  its  two  great 
legitimate  themes.  Hymns  to  the  gods,  and  panegyrics 
on  heroes,  are  the  two  forms  of  poetry  which  this  criti- 
cism has  left  uncondemned. 

While  Plato  writes  chiefly  with  the  influence  of  the 
drama  in  view,  we  should  not  look  to  the  stage,  in 
England  at  any  rate,  for  an  analogous  influence  now.  In 
considering  the  new  question  about  imaginative  literature 
which  these  sections  raise  we  should  most  naturally  have 
in  mind  the  effect  of  novels.  No  doubt  the  effect  of 
imaginative  literature  is  due  to  the  fact  that  we  are 
emotionally  susceptible  ;  it  appeals  in  the  first  instance 
to  one  side  of  our  nature ;  and  further  it  is  true,  as  Plato 
says,  that  when  we  are  strongly  acted  upon  by  imagina- 
tive literature  a  certain  part  of  us  is  in  abeyance  for  the 
time  being  ;  it  takes  us,  as  we  say,  out  of  ourselves.  But 
the  question  is  what  self  it  is  that  it  takes  us  out  of. 
Does  it  take  us  out  of  our  common,  every-day,  mean 


352         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

self?  Are  the  emotions  which  it  appeals  to,  not  emotions 
which  we  should  be  ashamed  to  feel  in  ordinary  life,  but 
emotions  which  we  are  not  able  to  feel  in  ordinary  life  ? 
Does  it,  to  put  the  question  in  the  form  which  Aristotle 
suggests,  give  to  pity  and  fear  something  worth  pitying 
and  something  worth  fearing  for?  Or  does  it,  as  Plato 
thinks,  give  us  feelings  which  in  the  ordinary  business  of 
life,  or  at  any  time  if  we  thought  people  could  see  into  us, 
we  should  be  ashamed  to  feel  ?  and  does  it  take  us,  not 
out  of  our  prosaic  self,  but  out  of  the  self  that  is  practically 
useful  in  life?  These  questions  represent  a  real  issue; 
we  could  easily  find  examples  of  each  of  these  effects  of 
imaginative  literature;  and  most  people  have  had  some 
experience  of  the  worse  as  well  as  of  the  better  effects  of 
such  literature  upon  themselves.  Most  of  us,  for  instance, 
would  have  to  admit  that  a  great  deal  of  the  excitement 
which  we  get  out  of  novels  does  not  develop  the  parti- 
cular things  in  us  of  which  we  are  proud,  though  we 
cannot  deny  the  great  effectiveness  and  charm  of  many 
of  those  works.  Plato  here  writes  with  nothing  in  view  but 
the  lower  kind  of  effects  that  imaginative  literature  can 
produce.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  are  times 
in  the  history  of  the  world  when  only  the  lower  sorts  of 
art  become  popular,  when  imaginative  art  docs  aim  at 
mere  popularity,  and  when  its  only  interest  is  to  appeal 
to  those  susceptibilities  of  human  nature  which  arc  com- 
monest or  strongest,  because  it  has  to  cater  for  excitement. 
Further,  it  is  true  in  a  certain  sense,  as  Plato  says,  that,  the 
more  indiscriminate  you  are  in  what  you  appeal  to,  the 
easier  artistic  work  becomes;  it  is  much  easier  to  excite 
if  you  do  not  care  what  you  excite,  or  how.  In  Book  III, 
where  also  Plato  discusses  the  effects  of  imitation,  taking 
the   word    in  a  narrower  sense  than  here,  he  objects  to 


DIGRESSION    ON    POETRY  353 

the  drama  (the  literature  which  is  in  that  sense  most 
imitative)  on  the  ground  that  the  merely  imitative 
instinct  is  probably  a  symptom  of,  and  certainly  stimu- 
lates, weakness  of  character,  want  of  personality.  Here, 
again,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  readiness,  which  he 
speaks  of,  to  throw  oneself  into  different  characters  can 
have  the  effect  which  he  attributes  to  it ;  but  on  the 
other  hand  one  of  the  greatest  helps  to  the  development 
of  character  lies  in  being  encouraged  to  put  oneself  into 
characters  above  one's  ordinary  level  ;  and  this  help  is 
what  great  art  gives.  But,  rightly  or  wrongly,  Plato  has 
here  come  to  the  conclusion  that  nearly  all  the  imitative 
art  of  his  time  has  degenerated  into  indiscriminate 
catering  for  common  excitement.  He  treats  art  as  being 
this  and  only  this,  and  in  consequence  the  whole  passage 
remains  rather  an  attack  upon  certain  developments  of 
art  than  an  adequate  theoretical  treatment  of  it. 

Plato  characteristically  represents  the  dispute  in  which 
he  here  engages,  not  as  one  between  the  moral  and 
the  immoral  in  literature,  but  as  one  between  poetry 
generally  and  philosophy  generally  (607  B  sq.).  He 
quotes  sentences  to  express  the  feeling  which  certain 
poets  on  their  side  have  about  philosophy  and  science  ; 
they  regard  them  as  the  spinning  of  cobwebs,  or  as 
audacious  and  blasphemous  talk  about  things  above  us. 
The  same  feeling  of  antagonism  between  poetry  and 
philosophy  is  often  expressed  now  by  saying  that  philo- 
sophy and  science  take  the  interest  and  the  mystery  out 
of  life.  To  Plato,  on  the  contrary,  the  real  ground  of 
quarrel  seems  to  be  that  poetry  gets  hold  only  of  the 
outside  of  things,  appealing  always  to  the  most  super- 
ficial susceptibilities  of  man,  while  philosophy  gets  hold 
of  the  real  laws  and  facts  of  the  world.     Now  there  is  no 

VOL.  II.  A  a 


354         LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

reason  why  a  poet  should  not  really  in  his  own  way  be 
animated  by  the  same  spirit  as  a  philosopher.  There  is 
a  point,  as  Wordsworth  indicated,  where  philosophy  and 
poetry,  imagination  and  science,  meet.  It  is  generally 
in  their  lower  phases  that  poetry  and  philosophy  strike 
one  another  as  antagonistic.  The  greatest  philosophers 
and  the  greatest  poets  have  not  as  a  rule  felt  themselves 
to  be  at  enmity.  Plato  himself  is  something  very  like 
a  great  poet. 


XVI.    THE    FUTURE    LIFE    OF   THE 
SOUL 

[Republic,  X.  608  C  to  end.] 

The  second  part  of  Book  X,  like  the  first,  shows 
symptoms  of  having  been  left  in  an  unfinished  state. 
In  the  opening  words  which  introduce  the  subject  of 
immortality,  '  And  yet  nothing  has  been  said  of  the 
greatest  prizes  and  rewards  of  virtue '  (608  c),  there  is 
no  transition  from  what  has  gone  before.  Plato  has 
not,  as  they  imply,  been  talking  of  the  rewards  of 
justice  on  earth.  He  first  begins  to  speak  of  them 
in  612  A  ;  and  after  that  there  occurs  in  614  a  another 
opening  similar  to  that  in  608  C,  and  this  time  in  its 
proper  connexion.  Thus  the  argument  about  immor- 
tality (608  c  to  6 1 2  a)  does  not  seem  to  be  in  any 
organic  connexion  either  with  what  actually  precedes 
or  with  what  actually  follows  it.  It  would  seem  that 
Plato  had  two  plans  in  his  mind  as  to  how  to  finish  the 
Republic l. 

1  Notice  too  the  fragmentary  character  of  611  A,  where  the  doctrine 
that  the  number  of  souls  existing  must  remain  constant  is  introduced 
abruptly,  and  dismissed  in  a  single  sentence. 

A  a  2 


6ll  A. 


356  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

Taking  the  section,  however,  as  it  stands,  we  find 
that  in  the  first  part  of  it  Plato  asserts  that  the  soul 
is  immortal,  and  gives  a  brief  argument  in  support  of 
this  belief,  asserting  that  the  true  nature  and  capacities 
of  the  soul  cannot  be  seen  in  its  earthly  state  (608  C  to 
612  a).  He  then  passes  to  the  question  whether  justice, 
which  has  been  shown  to  be  good  in  itself  apart  from 
consequences,  is  not  also  attended  by  external  rewards  ; 
and,  having  pointed  out  that  on  the  whole  it  is  so  in  this 
life  (612  A  to  6 14  a),  he  winds  up  the  whole  work  by 
discoursing,  by  means  of  the  Myth  of  Er,  on  the  destiny 
of  the  soul  after  death  (6 14  A  to  end). 

Plato  makes  no  attempt  here  to  deal  completely  with 
the  question  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  In  the 
PJiaedo  he  treats  the  whole  question,  but  here  it  is  only 
its  bearing  on  morality  that  concerns  him,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  touched  upon  just  far  enough  to  give  completion 
to  his  picture  of  the  destiny  of  the  soul  on  earth.  The 
point  of  view  from  which  he  argues  that  the  soul  is 
immortal  is  one  which  is  in  keeping  with  the  whole 
subject  of  the  Republic.  Throughout  the  Republic  the 
question  has  been,  What  is  the  real  good  and  the  real  evil 
of  the  soul  ?  In  accordance  with  all  that  has  gone 
before,  Plato  here  insists  that  the  only  form  of  evil  or 
of  good  that  affects  the  soul  is  moral  or  spiritual.  Now 
moral  or  spiritual  evil  docs  not  make  the  soul  die,  in  the 
ordinary  sense.  Hence,  he  argues,  the  soul  is  not  subject 
to  death  in  the  ordinary  sense  ;  death  is  a  form  of  evil 
which  affects  the  body  only, 
mi  1.  to  Having  said  that  the  soul  in  its  essence  does  not  die 

with  bodily  death,  Plato  modifies  this  statement.  When 
we  assert  the  immortality  of  the  soul  we  must  remember 
that  this  immortality  only  belongs  to  it  in  its  true  nature. 


6l2  A. 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE    OF    THE    SOUL  357 

and  that  on  earth  we  never  see  it  in  its  true  nature. 
The  soul  as  it  exists  in  union  with  the  human  body  is 
emphatically  a  composite  thing,  and  the  composition  is 
by  no  means  perfect ;  so  that  the  soul  as  it  appears  in 
its  earthly  life  is  liable  to  all  kinds  of  internal  distraction 
and  inconsistency.  The  ideal  condition  of  the  soul  is  one 
of  harmony  and  perfect  synthesis,  and  this  is  unattainable 
under  the  conditions  of  human  life  ;  so  that,  as  we  see 
the  soul  here,  its  original  nature  is  almost  entirely 
obscured,  like  the  human  form  of  the  sea-god  Glaucus 
in  the  myth,  by  overgrowths  which  come  upon  it  when 
it  enters  the  body.  If  we  want  to  see  the  immortal 
part  of  it  we  mutt  look  at  the  element  of  philosophy 
which  is  in  it ;  we  must  imagine  what  the  soul  would  be 
if  it  could  entirely  follow  the  impulse  of  philosophy, 
which  would  lift  it  out  of  this  sea  in  which  it  is  now 
sunk  and  show  us  its  real  nature1.  Aristotle2,  in  the 
same  way,  tells  us  that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  lies  in 
vovs,  and  is  to  be  seen  in  the  speculative  capacity  of  the 
mind.  With  Aristotle  and  Plato  the  impulse  of  the  soul, 
or  of  reason,  the  truly  human  element  in  it,  is,  literally, 
to  be  at  one  with  the  eternal  being  in  the  world.  The 
imagery  in  which  the  present  condition  of  the  soul  is 
described  as  one  of  being  sunk  in  the  sea,  and  there 
much  beaten  about  and  grown  over  with  various  extra- 
neous growths,  is  not  mere  figure  of  speech.  In  the 
Phaedo  3  we  find  the  idea  that  our  position  on  the  earth 

1  Cf.  490  b.  See  also  519  b,  where  Plato  represents  the  soul  as  fettered 
with  leaden  weights  attached  to  it  at  birth,  which  means  the  affections  to 
which  the  body  makes  the  soul  liable  ;  and  518  E,  where  reason  is  the 
divine  thing  in  the  soul,  which,  however  much  perverted  and  rendered 
useless,  still  retains  its  ancient  power.  Cf.  with  the  whole  passage 
Phaedo,  64  A  to  68  B. 

2  Eth.  Nic.  X.  vii.  8,  9.  3  109  A  sq. 

VOL.  II.  a  a  3 


358    LECTURES  ON  PLATO  S  '  REPUBLIC 

is  really  comparable  to  being  at  the  bottom  of  a  hollow 
or  in  some  deep  marshy  place  ;  if  we  could  get  up  higher 
we  should  come  to  a  region  where  everything  was  purer, 
and  where  we  should  see  much  more  clearly.  Both 
Plato  and  Aristotle  regarded  the  earth  as  imposing  all 
kinds  of  restrictions  and  hindrances  on  the  life  of  the 
soul ;  both  thought,  further,  that  the  fixed  stars  were 
made  of  finer  matter,  and  that  the  souls  connected  with 
them  had  correspondingly  finer  perceptions l.  Their 
view  of  the  soul  is  bound  up  with  a  physical  theory  of 
the  universe  2. 

The  soul  then,  whatever  metamorphosis  it  may  undergo 
when  it  enters  the  body,  is  in  the  essential  part  of  it 
immortal ;  and  the  Republic,  which  may  be  regarded 
(6 12  a)  as  a  picture  of  the  affections  which  the  soul 
undergoes  and  the  forms  which  it  assumes  in  human  life, 
its  highest  aspirations,  its  lowest  descents,  and  the  inter- 
mediate forms  of  life  between  them,  will  fittingly  conclude 
with  the  prospect  that  lies  before  the  soul  after  death. 
6i2Ato  But  first  Plato  returns  to  the  question,  which  was  laid 
613 E*  aside  at  the  outset  of  the  argument  in  Book  II.  of 
the  rewards  of  justice.  Socrates  had  been  asked  to  show 
that  justice  was  the  true  interest  of  the  soul,  without 
regard  to  any  external  results  of  justice  in  this  world 
or  another;  it  has  now  been  admitted  that  he  has 
done  so,  and  he  may  turn  to  the  further  question  of 
the  facts  about  the  external  results  of  justice.  Plato, 
having  devoted  the  whole  dialogue  so  far  to  showing 
that    the  good   and  evil  of  man  arc  the  good  and  evil 

1  Aristotle,  Frag.  i<).  1. 177  a.  31  ff. ,  from  Cicero,  <l<  Nat.  Deorum,  II.  15. 
-'  Cf.  Tintat  us  90  ad,  where  Plato  asserts  that  in  coming  to  understand 

the  laws  of  nature,  e.g.  of  I  lie  motion  d  tin  :,tars,  the  soul  on  earth  gets 
some  sort  of  anticipation  of  its  own  true  lite  and  nature. 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE    OF    THE    SOUL  359 

of  the  soul,  does  not,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  retract 
this  because  he  here  proceeds  to  reward  the  just  man 
with  external  goods.  He  points  out  first  that,  assuming 
the  moral  nature  of  God,  we  must  believe  that  the  good 
soul  pleases  God,  and  that,  whatever  appearances  there 
may  be  to  the  contrary,  the  good  man  is  never  neglected 
by  God  ;  all  things  must  be  well  for  the  good  man,  except 
so  far  as  there  is  some  evil  made  necessary  for  him  by 
previous  sin  l.  Again,  if  we  turn  to  the  relations  of  other 
men  to  those  who  are  just,  the  case  is  not  as  Thrasy- 
machus  represented  it.  Experience  shows  rather  that 
honesty  is  good  policy.  Thrasymachus  had  appealed  to 
certain  common  and  admitted  facts,  Socrates  appeals  to 
other  common  and  admitted  facts.  But  his  conclusion 
that  justice  is  man's  true  interest  is  not  drawn  from  the 
account  he  gives  of  its  usual  external  results,  and 
he  does  not  abandon  his  position  that  justice  is  good 
apart  from  all  outward  consequences,  as  being  nothing 
else  than  the  healthy  life  of  the  soul. 

The  purport  of  the  mythical  account  which  now  follows  613  e  to 
of  the  soul's  fate  after  death  is  to  insist  that  whatever  is  en  ' 
done  by  the  soul  on  earth  has  a  direct  effect  upon  its 
future.  Under  all  the  mythological  and  poetical  forms 
in  which  Plato  clothes  what  he  says  of  the  past  and  future 
of  the  soul,  one  thought  is  present,  that  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  involving  as  it  does  the  continuity  of  its 
existence,  adds  to  the  moral  responsibility  which  lies 
upon  us.  The  concluding  words  of  the  Republic  give  us 
the  key-note  of  the  whole  passage  ;  the  one  thing  to  study 
on  earth  is  how  to  make  oneself  better  and  wiser,  not  for 
this  life  alone,  but  for  another,  and  in  order  that  we  may 
choose  wisely  when  the  chance  comes  to  us,  as  it  will,  of 

1  Cf.  379  c  to  380  B  on  the  nature  of  human  ill-fortune. 


360  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

choosing  another  form  of  life.     Life  on  earth  is  a  great 
process  of  learning  and  gaining  experience  1. 

According  to  the  tale  of  what  was  seen  by  Er  the 
Armenian,  who  twelve  days  after  he  had  been  killed  in 
battle  was  sent  back  to  life,  the  soul  immediately  after 
death  proceeds  to  a  spot  where  it  is  judged.  The  just 
souls  are  there  seen  ascending,  through  an  opening  in  the 
sky  on  the  right  hand,  to  a  thousand  years  of  happiness, 
and  the  unjust  descending,  through  an  opening  in  the 
ground  on  the  left,  to  a  thousand  years  of  punishment 2. 
At  the  same  spot,  also,  perpetual  streams  of  souls  are 
seen  arriving,  some  coming  down  by  another  opening  in 
the  sky  from  their  sojourn  in  heaven,  others  coming  up 
by  another  opening  in  the  earth  from  their  sojourn  below. 
As  each  soul  returns,  whether  from  bliss  or  from  pain,  it 
goes  into  a  meadow,  where  it  rests  for  seven  days  before 
it  chooses  a  new  life  upon  earth.  The  ordinary  punish- 
ment allotted  to  the  unjust  soul  at  death  is  the  requital 
ten  times  over  of  the  evil  done  in  life ;  and  so  too  the 
recompense  to  the  just  of  the  good  done  in  life  is  tenfold. 
But  there  are  other  measures  of  punishment  also.  Those 
whose  lives  have  been  very  short  are  differently  dealt  with. 
Some  again  whose  guilt  has  been  extreme  are  held  not 
to  have  been  sufficiently  punished  when  they  return  after 
a  thousand  years,  and  are  sent  back  again  ;  and  there  are 
some  incurable  sinners  who  arc  cast  for  ever  into  Tar- 
tarus11. In  the  Gorgias  we  are  told  that  such  souls  serve 
as  examples.  The  punishment  of  all  who  are  not  incurable 
is  of  the  nature  of  purgatory,  and  souls  generally  return 
the  wiser  for  what  th<y  have  undergone.     Conversely,  the 

1  Cf.  VI.  498  i). 

1  Cf.  Gorgias  1  524  a  sqq.,  and  Phatdrtu  .  248  B  to  249  d. 

3  Cf.  Gorgias,  52511  sq.,  and  Photdo,   1  [3  1)  sq. 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE    OF    THE    SOUL  361 

enjoyment  of  bliss  sometimes  leads  a  soul  to  make  a  worse 
choice  than  it  would  otherwise  make  of  the  life  to  which 
it  will  return.  If,  however,  the  soul  after  being  rewarded 
makes  a  wise  choice,  and  goes  on  living  better  and  better 
in  each  successive  life,  and  getting  better  and  better  in 
each  sojourn  in  heaven,  it  at  last  escapes  the  necessity  of 
taking  a  mortal  body  again  (this  we  gather  from  a 
passage  in  the  Phacdrus1,  if  we  may  put  it  together 
with  this  passage). 

At  the  end  of  their  seven  days'  rest  the  souls  which 
have  returned  from  bliss  or  punishment  are  brought 
a  long  journey  into  the  presence  of  the  three  Fates, 
the  daughters  of  Necessity,  before  whom  their  choice  of 
a  new  life  has  to  be  made.  The  choosing  of  new  lives 
takes  place  at  a  spot  from  which  the  mechanism  of  the 
universe  is  visible,  and  of  this  the  myth  gives  a  detailed 
description  (6 1 6  B  sqq.) 2.  Plato  conceives  of  the  heavens 
[ovpavos)  as  a  hollow  sphere  which  revolves  with  a  motion 
of  its  own,  and  of  which  the  outermost  portion  is  that  in 
which  the  fixed  stars  are.  Within  it  are  seven  other 
hollow  spheres  containing  the  orbits  of  the  sun,  the  moon, 
and  the  five  planets  which  were  then  known.  These 
have  various  revolutions  of  their  own,  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  the  uniform  motion  of  the  ovpavos  as  a  whole. 
All  these  eight  spheres  revolve  round  the  earth,  which  is 
the  centre  of  the  whole.  The  whole  ovpavos  is  bound 
round  with  a  band  of  bright  light,  which  is  supposed  to 
mean  the  Milky  Way3.     This  astronomical  conception 

1  249  A. 

2  For  the  astronomical  part  of  this  description  see  Bockh,  Kleine 
Schriften,  III.  p.  297  foil. 

3  The  souls  on  their  journey  arc  said  to  see  this  band  of  light  first  as 
an  upright  column  in  front  of  them.  This  looks  at  first  as  if  it  was  a  pole 
passing  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  sphere,  but  the  word  vwu^aifxa  suggests 


362  LECTURES    ON    PLATO'S    '  REPUBLIC 

is  combined  by  Plato  with  the  old  notions  of  Necessity 
moving  the  world,  and  of  destiny  being  spun  by  the 
Fates ;  and  the  image  which  results  from  this  com- 
bination is,  of  course,  not  clear  or  consistent  in  all  its 
details.  The  whole  hollow  sphere,  with  the  seven 
separate  spheres  with  separate  motions  of  their  own 
fitted  in  it,  forms  the  whorl  (o-(p6i'bv\os)  of  the  spindle 
(arpcLKTos)  of  Necessity.  It  is  fastened  by  the  Milky 
Way  and  other  bands  to  the  hook  (ayiaa-Tpov)  of  the 
spindle.  The  shaft  (?}\a«a7?y)  of  the  spindle  passes 
right  through  the  whole  of  the  eight  spheres ;  and, 
around  the  point  where  it  enters  them,  the  lips  of  the 
spheres  are  seen  as  a  continuous  surface  of  eight  con- 
centric rings,  of  which  the  colours  and  the  relative  widths 
are  described  in  accordance  with  the  colours  and  the 
relative  distances  from  the  earth  ascribed  to  the  heavenly 
bodies  which  move  with  them.  The  spindle  rests  on  the 
knees  of  Necessity,  and  the  whole  mechanism  is  turned 
by  the  Fates — Clotho,  Lachcsis,  whose  name  signifies 
chance,  and  Atropos,  whose  name  signifies  the  inevitable. 
The  shaft  and  the  hook  of  the  spindle  are  of  adamant, 
that  is  to  say  they  arc  imperishable  and  unchanging ; 
but  the  whorl,  the  system  of  spheres,  that  is  to  say  the 
whole  visible  universe,  is  partly  of  adamant,  partly  of 
other  substances,  which  means  that  the  universe  partly 
exhibits  uniform  and  eternal  law,  and  partly  irregularity 
and  change. 

a  band  passing  round  the  sphere,  and  moreover  the  shaft  of  the  distaff 
passes  through  the  centre  of  the  sphere.  The  souls  must  be  supposed  to 
bi  ill  en  to  a  point  outside  the  whole  ■  phere  ;  the  word  vwtov,  in  616  e  (cf. 
PhaedruSf  ^47  c),  shows  this,  and  further  they  pass  under  the  throne  of 
;,,  ,  ,  My.  upon  whose  knees  the  spindle  upon  which  the  sphere  turns 
1  n  ling.  From  a  certain  point  outside  the  sphere  a  band  passing 
round  it  would  be  seen  as  an  upright  column. 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE    OF    THE    SOUL  363 

Plato  further  introduces  into  the  image  the  Pytha- 
gorean idea  that  in  some  way  the  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  make  up  a  musical  harmony.  It  arose  from  the 
attempt  to  find  a  law  regulating  the  various  distances 
of  these  bodies  from  the  earth ;  some  Pythagoreans 
imagined  that  a  relation  could  be  established  between 
these  distances  and  the  intervals  between  the  notes  of  the 
scale.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  the  '  music  of  the 
spheres.'  In  Plato's  picture  a  Siren  sits  upon  each  of 
the  rings  formed  by  the  spheres,  and  is  carried  round 
with  it.  Each  Siren  sings  a  single  note,  and  the  eight 
notes  make  a  scale  (ap/xozna).  The  three  Fates  sing  to 
the  music  of  the  spheres,  Lachesis  of  the  past,  Clotho  of 
the  present,  Atropos  of  the  future. 

The  choice  which  the  souls  make  of  life  is  the  all- 
important  crisis  in  their  history.  Plato  in  his  description 
of  their  choosing  (617  D  sqq.)  has  expressed  his  opinion 
upon  Free  Will  and  Necessity.  In  every  human  life 
there  is  an  element  of  necessity  or  of  what  (so  far  as  the 
man  himself  is  concerned)  may  be  called  chance  ;  there 
is  also  an  element  of  choice.  This  idea  is  applied  here 
to  the  causes  which  determine  the  conditions  under  which 
a  man  is  born.  In  the  first  place,  the  order  in  which  the 
souls  choose  is  determined  for  them  by  lot.  In  the 
second  place,  however  late  in  the  order  a  soul  gets  its 
choice,  it  still  gets  a  choice,  and,  as  is  proclaimed  to  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Fates,  even  the  soul  that  chooses  last 
will  have  a  life  worth  living,  if  it  chooses  wisely,  and 
thereafter  lives  intently  (<tvvt6vcos).  In  the  third  place, 
when  the  soul  has  made  its  choice  of  life  it  has  chosen 
its  destiny  (baifxiov) 1 ;  that  is  to  say,  practically,  a  man's 

1  For  the  5aiy.aiv  cf.  Phaedo,  107  D-108  C,  where  the  Saifiaiv  takes  the  soul 
back  to  the  other  world  when  it  has  finished  its  life  on  earth.       Here,  in 


364  LECTURES    ON    PLATO  S    '  REPUBLIC 

own  will  is  his  destiny,  in  the  sense  that  he  can  never 
reverse  what  he  has  once  willed  to  do,  nor  its  con- 
sequences 1.  Circumstances,  the  fact  of  choice,  and  the 
irrevocableness  of  choice  are  the  three  great  elements  in 
life. 

At  this  choosing  of  lives,  many  souls  of  animals  become 
men,  and  vice  versa  (620  A  sq.).  As  has  been  seen 
already,  Plato  was  quite  serious  in  the  idea  of  continuity 
between  animal  and  human  life.  There  is  no  doubt,  too, 
that  he  was  perfectly  serious  in  the  belief — which  is 
expressed  in  the  whole  myth  of  Er,  and  particularly 
where  the  soul's  choice  of  a  new  life  is  represented 
as  the  outcome  of  the  way  in  which  it  has  previously 
lived — that  man's  conduct  in  one  phase  of  existence 
has  a  determining  effect  on  his  destiny  in  some  future 
phase. 

620  E,  the  Fates  send  with  each  soul  a  Sa'tftwv  to  attend  it  through  life 
and  fulfil  for  it  the  destiny  it  has  chosen.  This  is  a  sort  of  mythological 
expression  of  the  idea  that  the  man's  character  or  personality  determines 
his  own  particular  destiny.  Cf.  Timacus,  90  A,  where  Plato  speaks  of  the 
highest  element  of  the  soul  as  a  man's  ha'ifiwv.  It  is  easy  to  pass  from  this 
to  the  notion  of  attendant  spirits  watching  over  men's  lives,  and  that  is 
the  connexion  between  the  sense  of  ^aifxwv  here  and  the  sense  in  which 
great  men  are  said  to  be  worshipped  as  Saifiovft  (540  c). 

1  In  the  /3iW  irapafidynaTa  (samples  of  lives)  which  are  thrown  before  the 
souls  to  choose  from,  all  kinds  of  circumstances  in  various  combinations 
are  present  in  a  determinate  character,  but  the  one  vital  element  of  the  de- 
terminate character  of  the  soul  itself,  if/vxijs  T(*f<s>  is  said  not  to  be  present, 
'  because  it  is  fated  that  the  soul  in  choosing  a  given  life  should  become 
like  what  it  chooses.'  Here  we  have  the  old  distinction  of  the  externals 
of  life  and  the  actual  vital  principle  itself;  the  soul  is  to  choose  the 
external  conditions  of  its  life,  but  by  its  choice  of  life  it  becomes  what  it 
is  to  be  (618  n). 


THE    END. 


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